New petroleum regulatory policy will be all-encompassing – NNPC

Senior Technical Adviser to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Adegbite Adeniji, has said that the new Federal Government’s petroleum sector regulatory policy would create a “one stop – shop” petroleum sector.

Adeniji said all current regulatory and pseudo-regulatory activities would be taken over by the new regulator. He added that the process would be responsible for technical and economic regulation.

“The role includes minimizing and, where possible, eliminating market distortions, and implementing licensing, monitoring and investigations.

“The licensing regime will cover every activity, licenses for exploration, production, constructing and operating gas processing plants, liquefaction plants, constructing and operating gas storage facilities, transportation pipelines, distribution networks, and undertaking the supply of natural gas including gas trading.

“The existing petroleum legislation is enacted more for oil with inadequate provisions for gas as a hydrocarbon and an industry in its own right. It does not provide for the development of a midstream and downstream gas industry.” He said

He assured that the government will pass a new legislation to address gas issues, remove the anomaly and distinguish between upstream, mid and downstream sectors.

Adeniji noted that Nigerian energy sector is a very strategic sector with strong linkages to the to the macro economy, the petroleum sector accounts for 90 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign currency earnings while its electricity sector utilizes 85 per cent of natural gas produced into the domestic market.

He lamented that up to 75 per cent of daily gas production is flared due to lack of critical gas infrastructure.

Adeniji said huge new volumes of gas and Liquefied Natural Gas are coming on-stream globally against the reduced forecast of market demand growth.

Source: VON