Gas flaring penalties to be used for environmental remediation, says FG

From Uche Usim, Abuja

To safeguard the environment, the Federal Government via the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) has recommended that penalties from gas flaring will be utilized “for the purpose of environmental

remediation and relief of the host communities” as

provided under Sections 52 (7d), 104 (4) of the Act.

The Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Gbenga Komolafe, made the disclosure in Abuja on Tuesday at the Nigerian Oil and Gas Conference (NOG) while providing regulatory oversight in the PIA era.

He said the Act has vested the Commission in its regulatory

activities with sweeping powers to act as an investigator, quasi-judicial, a mediator, a conciliator, and a business enabler.

“The whole intent is to ensure that the Commission is fully equipped statutorily to discharge on its mandates.

“It is gratifying that the Commission has effectively been deploying its statutory powers within the PIA environment to ensure an effective and predictable regulatory environment in the sector”, he explained.

He added that the PIA 2021 has introduced incentives aimed at growing reserves and increasing Nigeria’s daily crude oil production towards attaining the government aspiration of 40 billion barrels and 220TCF of oil and gas reserves respectively and three million bpd production target.

“In a clear departure from the past, the PIA, 2021 has introduced a mandatory Decommissioning and

Abandonment Fund prescribed under Section 232 and 233, adoption of Grid System for Acreages under Section 69, Host Communities Development

Trust under Chapter 3 that has replaced MOUs and GMOUs. These are aimed at achieving operational efficiency, higher productivity, cost optimization,

cleaner and safe upstream environment.

“The Act has also made provision for existing producing marginal field operators to be granted a

separate Petroleum Mining Lease (PML) after conversion. Likewise, any discovery declared as a

marginal field prior to 1st January 2021 and not producing shall be converted to Petroleum Prospecting License (PPL) and be issued Model Licence and contract in compliance with Sections 94(1)(2) and 85 of the PIA”, he added.

Meanwhile, the NOG Conference has wrapped on Wednesday, a day ahead of the original design to honour the secretary general of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Mr Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo, who died on Tuesday night.