From Kenneth Udeh, Abuja
The Senate has indicted International Oil firms, IOCs operating in Nigeria for their failure to remit gas-flaring penalties, as stipulated by the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
Similarly the upper chamber also faulted the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) for aiding the IOCs to perpetrate such act by not effectively enforcing compliance of the oil firms with the PIA Act.
The Senate gave the verdict on Thursday during an engagement between the IOCs, management of the NUPRC and the Senate Committee on Gas chaired by Senator Jarigbe Agom to give account of their compliance with Metering, Gas Flaring, Decommissioning and abandonment plans.
The NUPRC who initially said they were not prepared to provide information on the gas flaring fines paid by the IOCs later gave answers to the Senators on their supervisory findings on the IOcs with regards to metering, gas flaring and decommissioning.
Oil firms involved include Shell Petroleum Development Company, Chevron and Total Energies while the committee threatened to sanction ExxonMobil Nigeria and Agip Company for failing to attend the meeting.
As revealed by the Jarigbe, backlogs of payment were found in the report submitted by the IOCs who all admitted to Gas flaring.
Jarigbe also faulted the companies for their non-compliance with the provisions of the PIA specifically on section 232, which provides for commissioning procedures and the exco account among others.
The meeting is premised on the need to address the environmental devastation caused by gas flaring particularly in the Niger Delta region and the World Bank report of a significant loss of potential revenue, estimated between $761.2 million and $893.1 million in 2022 alone due to gas flaring.
During the interaction, the IOCs told the lawmakers that they had successfully reduced gas flaring by 97 percent and committed to achieving 100 percent reduction by the end of the year.
The committee, however, emphasized that it would conduct thorough oversight to ascertain the veracity of their claims and warned that any defaulting agencies will face the full force of the law.