“After years of talking about it, we are finally poised to control our own energy future. We produce more oil at home than we have in 15 years. We have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas, and the amount of renewable energy we generate from sources like wind and solar – with tens of thousands of good, American jobs to show for it. We produce more natural gas than ever before – and nearly everyone’s energy bill is lower because of it. And over the last four years, our emissions of the dangerous carbon pollution that threatens our planet have actually fallen.”

In the 10th century, the Arabian physician Masawaih al-Mardini (Mesue the Younger) wrote of his experiments in extracting oil from “some kind of bituminous shale”.The first shale oil extraction patent was granted by the British Crown in 1684 to three people who had “found a way to extract and make great quantities of pitch, tarr, and oyle out of a sort of stone”.

George Osahon, is the President, National Association of Petroleum Explorationists, NAPE. In this interview with Sebastine Obasi, he discusses the issues inherent in unconventional discoveries, such as shale gas and oil and what Nigeria should do to remain relevant in the oil and gas industry. Excerpt:

In exercise of its mandate, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, recently developed a customer complaints forum to redress the mechanism for handling such complaints. The Commission also inducted a 25 man members for the forum’s unit in Abuja, to oversee such complaints and effectively tackle them.

Small-scale and artisanal mining, a sector that governments and development agencies often see as only a problem, could be a source of sustainable livelihoods for millions of marginalised people, say researchers at the International Institute for Environment and Development, IIED.