Oando, Lagos govt to deploy 5,000 electric buses

The Group Chief Executive Officer of OandO Plc, Wale Tinubu, said the plans of the oil company to partner with the Lagos State Government to deploy 5,000 electric commercial vehicles to the state are now in top gear.

Tinubu said the decision of the firm to invest in electric vehicles, particularly public transportation, was triggered by its commitment to adopt cleaner energy solutions as part of its energy transition drive.

He stated this during an interview with CNBC Africa on the sidelines of the just-concluded World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The oil magnate defended the cleaner energy transition codenamed ‘just transition’ over decarbonisation in Africa as the continent “is actually a victim of global warming,” bearing the brunt of climate change despite contributing only about three per cent of global emissions.

He stressed that Africa cannot decarbonise or abandon its large deposits of fossil fuels for clean energy sources while the majority of its citizens wallow in energy poverty.

“The arguments for decarbonisation are as important as the arguments for a just transition, and that transition has to recognise the fact that Africa has 45 per cent of the people who have no access to electricity or energy products, so our first step really must be to use what we need, which means that we need to use our gas as part of the energy mix to service the needs of our continent and that we need to do so as a transitional fuel whilst we work with an energy mix.”

He noted that OandO, being a major player in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, is deploying EVs as a “carbon capture technique” to contribute to the global decarbonisation campaign.

“For every modicum of carbon we put into the economy, into the world, and the environment, we are also taking that out by ensuring that we have carbon capture techniques as well as ensuring that our clean energy offering as part of our products and services is high, so we’re focusing a lot on e-vehicles,” he explained.

Speaking on the planned electric commercial vehicle, he said, “We are using gas as a transitional fuel to create electricity to generate the power to power buses; transport is 10 per cent of global emissions, so if we tackle public transport, we would be able to reduce emissions by five per cent almost immediately, and the first step we’re doing now is also working on a public system of being able to transit the bus system in Nigeria from diesel or petrol to electric vehicles, starting with a project that we’re working on with the Lagos state government as a pilot case  where we expect to see up to 5,000 buses, e-buses, being deployed in our streets.”