Decommissioning: New Agency Will Affect Ease Of Doing Business – Commission

The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has said that creating a standalone bureau to decommission, abandon, and reconstruct lipid and state infrastructure would negatively interaction the national government’s initiatives to amended concern ease.

A manager successful NUPRC, Emmanuel Macjaja, said this astatine a nationalist proceeding connected the National Commission for Decommissioning of Oil and Gas Installations (NC-DOGI) bill, 2024, organised by the House of Representatives Committee connected Petroleum Resources (Upstream) successful Abuja connected Thursday.

Macjaja said creating a abstracted bureau would undermine the regulatory clarity and predictability rule the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), 2021 sought to achieve.

He said the PIA 2021 intelligibly delineated the roles of NUPRC (for upstream) and MDPRA (for midstream/downstream), which are efficaciously discharging decommissioning and abandonment regulatory responsibilities.

“Creating NC-DOGI volition present unnecessary overlaps successful responsibilities that could hold task approvals, summation transaction costs for investors, and undermine accountability, particularly successful enforcing the cementing of decommissioning and abandonment money utilisation.

“The House Committee connected Petroleum Resources (Upstream) is respectfully urged to support decommissioning and abandonment oversight wrong the existing petroleum regulatory model (NUPRC and NMDPRA).

“This attack volition guarantee method coherence, economical efficiency, and alignment with the PlA 2021 and planetary standards, thereby safeguarding Nigeria’s involvement successful the lipid and state assemblage and promoting the Federal Government’s easiness of concern initiatives,” Macjaja stated.

In his remarks, the committee’s chairman, Hon. Alhassan Ado-Doguwa, said that Nigeria’s petroleum manufacture has continued to look challenges successful decommissioning and abandoning lipid and state facilities implicit the years.

According to him, these challenges person had environmental, economic, and societal impacts, peculiarly connected big communities. Hence, a person look astatine whether the existing regulatory frameworks are capable oregon request to beryllium strengthened and whether establishing a dedicated body, specified arsenic the projected Commission, would amended service nationalist interests.

“The NC-DOGI bill, a House leadership-sponsored bill, is simply a important legislative connection due to the fact that it addresses matters that straight impact the payment of our people, the extortion of our environment, and the livelihood of big communities wrong oil-producing regions.

“It reflects parliament’s committedness to ensuring that the maturation of the lipid and state assemblage aligns with biology work and sustainable assemblage development.

“As a committee, we privation to emphasise that today’s workout is not an investigative hearing, nor is it intended to predetermine the result of this legislative proposal. Our relation is to perceive objectively, collate each viewpoints, and measure them cautiously earlier presenting our recommendations to the House,” helium added.