The Nation Newspaper

Category: Energy

  • Anxiety as NERC meets operators on metering

    Anxiety has gripped firms, which applied to serve as Meter Asset Providers (MAPs) under the new metering arrangement, following the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission’s (NERC’s) decision to invite them for a meeting this week.

    The 115 firms were in a last minutes rush to know the details of the meeting as they made frantic efforts to ensure that their chief executive officers, were available for the meeting, which is billed to hold in Abuja.

    However, sources told The Nation that the meeting may not be unconnected with granting approval to firms shortlisted for reducing the metering gap of 4.8 milliion people in the country.

    The sources further said the need to fashion out modalities for the take-off of the firms and the date for the commencement of their operation, among others, informed NERC’s decision to invite them to the meeting.

    Reacting, Momas Electricity Meter Manufacturing Company Limited (MEMMCOL) Chief Executive officer, Kola Balogun, said he believed the meeting would discuss knotty issues that pertain to the operation of the meter asset providers.

    He said the Commission was eager to move the sector forward by proffering solutions to meter shortage in the country, adding that stakeholders in the value chain, especially meter providers and the consumers, are looking forward to a date, when the scheme would be fully implemented.

    Balogun, whose firm is also a prospective meter asset provider, said the sub-sector is bedeviled with problems such as shortage of meters, adding that NERC’s decision to take off the burden of distributing meters from the eleven power distribution companies (DIsCos) and instead allow some privately owned companies to help in providing meters to consumers, would move the sector forward.

    According to him, meter asset providers would be happy to start operation as soon as possible, adding that the indigenous manufacturers of meters are ready for the job. He said operators are expecting the meeting to iron issues that are bothering them and provide them the way forward.

    “I believe the meeting would come out with a communiqué that would tell us the position of things on the new metering programme. It is after the meeting that everybody, especially the prospective meter asset providers, would know when they would commence operation,” he said.

    The Federal Government through the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, last month, announced plans by the government to license meter asset providers to help in providing meters to consumers across the country.

    Thereafter, NERC obtained and sought out applications from firms that want to play as meter asset providers and fixed January 2019 for the commencement of their operation.  However, firms are waiting for NERC to fix a new date for the commencement of their operation following their inability to start operation in January as planned.

  • NCDMB, stakeholders conclude on local content regulations

    The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has held its final phase of engagements with oil and gas industry stakeholders on the draft of Nigerian Content Ministerial Regulations (NCMR).

    The final forum was held in Lagos had in attendance representatives of the multinational and indigenous operating companies, service companies and select law firms working on the regulations.

    NCDMB Executive Secretary,   Simbi Wabote, an engineer, was represented at the workshop by Director Finance and Personnel Management, Mr. Isaac Yalah, who stated the key objective of the event, which was “the adoption of the updated draft Ministerial Regulations by industry stakeholders for onward transmittal to the Minister for ratification”.

    He said the Board believed strongly in collaborating with key stakeholders in the development of policies, which was why it convened a number of engagements to obtain the reviews and endorsement of industry players on the regulations.

    According to Yalah, Sections 36, 40, 41, 42, 47, 55 and 101 of the Nigerian Content Act empower the Minister of Petroleum Resources to make regulations that will foster the development of Nigerian content. He urged participants at the workshop to make robust inputs, which would be incorporated before the documents are dispatched to the Minister.

    NCDMB Legal Services Co-ordinator, Mrs. Rose Chukwuonwe, noted that previous deliberations on the ministerial regulations had been impactful and successful.

    The ministerial regulations covers Research & Development (R&D); Training, Capacity Development; Growth of Indigenous Capacity; Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Enforcement and Compliance Regulation; Registration of Operators and other professionals with Nigerian professional bodies; Technology transfer and Establishment of operations in Nigeria.

  • ‘PIB delaying production sharing contracts review’

    The non passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) has been identified as the sole reason delaying the review of the Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) with oil companies, Managing partner, J.O Adidi and Co., John Adidi, has said.

    The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), in a recent study, revealed that Nigeria had lost no less than $16 billion, over a 10-year period (2008–2017), due to non-review of the 1993 production sharing contracts (PSCs) with oil companies.

    The PSC was introduced in 1993 to address some of the issues faced by the Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) and to provide a suitable agreement structure to encourage foreign investment in offshore acreage. Under the PSCs, the NNPC is the holder of the business while the international oil company (IOC) is the contractor. In 1993 the NNPC entered into PSCs with eight IOCs and Nigeria is believed to have attracted much needed additional foreign investment.

    According to NEITI, between 1998 and 2005, total production from PSC assets was below 100,000,000 barrels per year, while Joint Venture (JV) companies produced over 650,000,000 barrels per year. By 2017, total production by PSC companies was 305,800,000 barrels, which was 44.32 per cent of total production. Total production by JV companies was 212,850,000 barrels, representing 30.84per cent of total production.

    The development, according to NEITI, therefore, calls for an urgent review of the PSCs to stop the huge revenue losses to Nigeria.

    NEITI added that such a review was important for the country because oil production from PSCs has surpassed production from JVs as productions from PSCs contribute the largest share to the nation’s income.

    Adidi, who described it as part of the regulatory issues that have been pending, said provisions in the law had prescribed that if crude oil price rises above a certain level the production sharing contracts is supposed to be revisited

    He told The Nation on telephone that Nigeria was supposed to get more revenue when the oil price goes up, adding that oil price had never gone below $20. He expressed concern that oil price had always gone up in the past years and Nigeria had not taken advantage of that.

    He recalled when the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) came up everybody expressed excitement because it was a compilation of laws that would take care of the PSCs and similar issues, but unfortunately the PIGB up till now is still in the works. “So, the plan was to have a collection of laws for the whole industry through the PIB, but nobody envisaged that the bill by now would not have been approved,” he added.

    According to him, if the PIGB had been approved every issue concerning the PSCs would have been settled. “Unfortunately, we are approaching the 9th Assembly. The 8th Assembly was unable to pass the PIB and they are coming to the end of their tenure by May. There’s no way the bill can be passed in the next two months.

    “We have to be realistic, what the 8th Assembly could not do in three years and 10months they will not be able to achieve in two months.

    “So, what it means is that the 9th Assembly will start all over again because there will be new members, who don’t know what the PIB is even all about, they need to be educated, and they need to follow the process.

    “It’s unfortunate that we don’t tackle some of these issues speedily as a nation and since oil still remains the mainstay of the nation. It’s even a shock that those in authority are not patriotic enough to do this in the national interest. It will continue to affect us, we are the ones losing,” he noted.

    Adidi said the multinational oil companies would not tell Nigeria to review the agreement when they know they will pay more. “It’s our duty as a nation to revisit the contract and bring out issues that needed to be reviewed and approach our partners to review the clauses in the PSCs and the country will benefit,” he said.

    It would be recalled that the PIGB that was passed, but the president disagreed with some provisions in the bill and it has remained unsigned.

    The nineth Assembly, Adidi explained, would have to start from square one, noting that it will be inaugurated sometime in June after the President’s swearing in.

    “I don’t see the nineth Assembly taking position to be able to visit the PIGB until may be around August, at the earliest. Also, as we speak, the budget of 2019 has not been approved. To me, that should be the main thrust of the remaining period of the eighth Assembly. Let them do everything possible to approve the budget. From the fillers we are getting they are not even thinking of approving the budget, their session may even end without approving the 2019 budget. Recall, the 2018 budget was approved in June, ‘so if it’s going to be approved in June that means the tenure of the 8th Assembly would have been over,” he said.

    According to Adidi, this is one major reason foreign investors are scared away. “The level of uncertainty was so high and there are markets where there are certainties, the rules are there and you can project into the future,” he said.

    National Assembly Petroleum Upstream Committee Vice Chairman, Senator Gershom Bassey, who also spoke on telephone, agreed that the oil price benchmark had exceeded $20 several times in the past years, but unfortunately nobody has reviewed it. He said the issue was brought on the floor of the House and there was a committee looking into it, adding that some of these things were covered in the upcoming petroleum industry fiscal bill despite the problems and delays in the whole PIB.

  • PENGASSAN: Strikes not feasible with NNPC’s rehabilitation plans

    Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has assured the Federal Government that oil workers may not embark on another round of industrial action if the plans by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to rehabilitate the four state-owned refineries are realised.

    NNPC Group Managing Director, Dr Makanti Baru, had stated that the Federal Government would return the refineries to their nameplates by the end of 2019. The refineries are Port Harcourt 1& 2, Warri and Kaduna.

    In an interview with The Nation, the immediate past PENGASSAN chairman, Port Harcourt Refineries branch, Mr. Mike Agbana, said oil workers are not thinking of embarking on strike now, adding that the issue of returning the refineries to optimal capacity is uppermost in the minds of the workers now.

    Agbana said: “In every 24 months, Port Harcourt refineries and other government owned refineries are expected to undergo turnaround maintenance in line with industry standard. But that has not been possible.  Since year 2000, Port Harcourt refineries have not experienced any turnaround initiative. To be frank, the refineries are dead. This informed the decision of workers to advocate for at least, 90 per cent output of the refineries and not strike action.

    “In the first leg of the rehabilitation of the refineries, Eni-Agip and other critical stakeholders in the sector will play a role, which is good news for the industry and the country, which has been spending huge amount of money to subsidise the importation of fuel into the country.”

    Agbana said the decision by NNPC to rehabilitate the refineries would help in easing fuel scarcity and further increase availability of the petroleum products, especially Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), which the country uses a lot for economic activities.

    “Two achievements are expected to be recorded by the government’s plans to fix the refineries. First is the fact that there would be more fuel in the country. Secondly, more job opportunities will be created, when refineries work at optimum capacity. That is, thousands of jobs that have been lost to sordid state of the refineries would be recovered soon.”

    According to him, the workers are not expecting the government to out-rightly sell the refineries, but adopt the structures used in bringing the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) to optimum production for reviving the refineries also.

    He said when Dr. Baru promised to rehabilitate the refineries on March 21, this year, the statement was greeted with applause from the stakeholders, especially the workers.

    He said the reason was because the idea will lay to rest the issue of poor performance of the refineries.

    Past governments, especially those before the All Progressive Party (APC) government, he said, spent years to retool the refineries, but to no avail, stressing that workers had thought that NNPC would do the same thing.

    Agbana said NNPC has proved everybody wrong by organising what he described as a ground breaking ceremony for the rehabilitation of the refineries, a development, which would return the country to era of abundance of fuel supply.

  • ‘PIB delaying production sharing contracts review’

    The non passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) has been identified as the sole reason delaying the review of the Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) with oil companies, Managing partner, J.O Adidi and Co., John Adidi, has said.

    The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), in a recent study, revealed that Nigeria had lost no less than $16 billion, over a 10-year period (2008–2017), due to non-review of the 1993 production sharing contracts (PSCs) with oil companies.

    The PSC was introduced in 1993 to address some of the issues faced by the Joint Operating Agreement (JOA) and to provide a suitable agreement structure to encourage foreign investment in offshore acreage. Under the PSCs, the NNPC is the holder of the business while the international oil company (IOC) is the contractor. In 1993 the NNPC entered into PSCs with eight IOCs and Nigeria is believed to have attracted much needed additional foreign investment.

    According to NEITI, between 1998 and 2005, total production from PSC assets was below 100,000,000 barrels per year, while Joint Venture (JV) companies produced over 650,000,000 barrels per year. By 2017, total production by PSC companies was 305,800,000 barrels, which was 44.32 per cent of total production. Total production by JV companies was 212,850,000 barrels, representing 30.84per cent of total production.

    The development, according to NEITI, therefore, calls for an urgent review of the PSCs to stop the huge revenue losses to Nigeria.

    NEITI added that such a review was important for the country because oil production from PSCs has surpassed production from JVs as productions from PSCs contribute the largest share to the nation’s income.

    Adidi, who described it as part of the regulatory issues that have been pending, said provisions in the law had prescribed that if crude oil price rises above a certain level the production sharing contracts is supposed to be revisited

    He told The Nation on telephone that Nigeria was supposed to get more revenue when the oil price goes up, adding that oil price had never gone below $20. He expressed concern that oil price had always gone up in the past years and Nigeria had not taken advantage of that.

    He recalled when the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) came up everybody expressed excitement because it was a compilation of laws that would take care of the PSCs and similar issues, but unfortunately the PIGB up till now is still in the works. “So, the plan was to have a collection of laws for the whole industry through the PIB, but nobody envisaged that the bill by now would not have been approved,” he added.

    According to him, if the PIGB had been approved every issue concerning the PSCs would have been settled. “Unfortunately, we are approaching the 9th Assembly. The 8th Assembly was unable to pass the PIB and they are coming to the end of their tenure by May. There’s no way the bill can be passed in the next two months.

    “We have to be realistic, what the 8th Assembly could not do in three years and 10months they will not be able to achieve in two months.

    “So, what it means is that the 9th Assembly will start all over again because there will be new members, who don’t know what the PIB is even all about, they need to be educated, and they need to follow the process.

    “It’s unfortunate that we don’t tackle some of these issues speedily as a nation and since oil still remains the mainstay of the nation. It’s even a shock that those in authority are not patriotic enough to do this in the national interest. It will continue to affect us, we are the ones losing,” he noted.

    Adidi said the multinational oil companies would not tell Nigeria to review the agreement when they know they will pay more. “It’s our duty as a nation to revisit the contract and bring out issues that needed to be reviewed and approach our partners to review the clauses in the PSCs and the country will benefit,” he said.

    It would be recalled that the PIGB that was passed, but the president disagreed with some provisions in the bill and it has remained unsigned.

    The nineth Assembly, Adidi explained, would have to start from square one, noting that it will be inaugurated sometime in June after the President’s swearing in.

    “I don’t see the nineth Assembly taking position to be able to visit the PIGB until may be around August, at the earliest. Also, as we speak, the budget of 2019 has not been approved. To me, that should be the main thrust of the remaining period of the eighth Assembly. Let them do everything possible to approve the budget. From the fillers we are getting they are not even thinking of approving the budget, their session may even end without approving the 2019 budget. Recall, the 2018 budget was approved in June, ‘so if it’s going to be approved in June that means the tenure of the 8th Assembly would have been over,” he said.

    According to Adidi, this is one major reason foreign investors are scared away. “The level of uncertainty was so high and there are markets where there are certainties, the rules are there and you can project into the future,” he said.

    National Assembly Petroleum Upstream Committee Vice Chairman, Senator Gershom Bassey, who also spoke on telephone, agreed that the oil price benchmark had exceeded $20 several times in the past years, but unfortunately nobody has reviewed it. He said the issue was brought on the floor of the House and there was a committee looking into it, adding that some of these things were covered in the upcoming petroleum industry fiscal bill despite the problems and delays in the whole PIB.

  • PENGASSAN: Strikes not feasible with NNPC’s rehabilitation plans

    Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has assured the Federal Government that oil workers may not embark on another round of industrial action if the plans by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to rehabilitate the four state-owned refineries are realised.

    NNPC Group Managing Director, Dr Makanti Baru, had stated that the Federal Government would return the refineries to their nameplates by the end of 2019. The refineries are Port Harcourt 1& 2, Warri and Kaduna.

    In an interview with The Nation, the immediate past PENGASSAN chairman, Port Harcourt Refineries branch, Mr. Mike Agbana, said oil workers are not thinking of embarking on strike now, adding that the issue of returning the refineries to optimal capacity is uppermost in the minds of the workers now.

    Agbana said: “In every 24 months, Port Harcourt refineries and other government owned refineries are expected to undergo turnaround maintenance in line with industry standard. But that has not been possible.  Since year 2000, Port Harcourt refineries have not experienced any turnaround initiative. To be frank, the refineries are dead. This informed the decision of workers to advocate for at least, 90 per cent output of the refineries and not strike action.

    “In the first leg of the rehabilitation of the refineries, Eni-Agip and other critical stakeholders in the sector will play a role, which is good news for the industry and the country, which has been spending huge amount of money to subsidise the importation of fuel into the country.”

    Agbana said the decision by NNPC to rehabilitate the refineries would help in easing fuel scarcity and further increase availability of the petroleum products, especially Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), which the country uses a lot for economic activities.

    “Two achievements are expected to be recorded by the government’s plans to fix the refineries. First is the fact that there would be more fuel in the country. Secondly, more job opportunities will be created, when refineries work at optimum capacity. That is, thousands of jobs that have been lost to sordid state of the refineries would be recovered soon.”

    According to him, the workers are not expecting the government to out-rightly sell the refineries, but adopt the structures used in bringing the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) to optimum production for reviving the refineries also.

    He said when Dr. Baru promised to rehabilitate the refineries on March 21, this year, the statement was greeted with applause from the stakeholders, especially the workers.

    He said the reason was because the idea will lay to rest the issue of poor performance of the refineries.

    Past governments, especially those before the All Progressive Party (APC) government, he said, spent years to retool the refineries, but to no avail, stressing that workers had thought that NNPC would do the same thing.

    Agbana said NNPC has proved everybody wrong by organising what he described as a ground breaking ceremony for the rehabilitation of the refineries, a development, which would return the country to era of abundance of fuel supply.

  • Anxiety as NERC meets operators on metering

    Anxiety has gripped firms, which applied to serve as Meter Asset Providers (MAPs) under the new metering arrangement, following the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission’s (NERC’s) decision to invite them for a meeting this week.

    The 115 firms were in a last minutes rush to know the details of the meeting as they made frantic efforts to ensure that their chief executive officers, were available for the meeting, which is billed to hold in Abuja.

    However, sources told The Nation that the meeting may not be unconnected with granting approval to firms shortlisted for reducing the metering gap of 4.8 milliion people in the country.

    The sources further said the need to fashion out modalities for the take-off of the firms and the date for the commencement of their operation, among others, informed NERC’s decision to invite them to the meeting.

    Reacting, Momas Electricity Meter Manufacturing Company Limited (MEMMCOL) Chief Executive officer, Kola Balogun, said he believed the meeting would discuss knotty issues that pertain to the operation of the meter asset providers.

    He said the Commission was eager to move the sector forward by proffering solutions to meter shortage in the country, adding that stakeholders in the value chain, especially meter providers and the consumers, are looking forward to a date, when the scheme would be fully implemented.

    Balogun, whose firm is also a prospective meter asset provider, said the sub-sector is bedeviled with problems such as shortage of meters, adding that NERC’s decision to take off the burden of distributing meters from the eleven power distribution companies (DIsCos) and instead allow some privately owned companies to help in providing meters to consumers, would move the sector forward.

    According to him, meter asset providers would be happy to start operation as soon as possible, adding that the indigenous manufacturers of meters are ready for the job. He said operators are expecting the meeting to iron issues that are bothering them and provide them the way forward.

    Read also: Metering is DisCos’ obligation, NERC insists

    “I believe the meeting would come out with a communiqué that would tell us the position of things on the new metering programme. It is after the meeting that everybody, especially the prospective meter asset providers, would know when they would commence operation,” he said.

    The Federal Government through the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, last month, announced plans by the government to license meter asset providers to help in providing meters to consumers across the country.

    Thereafter, NERC obtained and sought out applications from firms that want to play as meter asset providers and fixed January 2019 for the commencement of their operation.  However, firms are waiting for NERC to fix a new date for the commencement of their operation following their inability to start operation in January as planned.

  • Seplat urges public, private sector investments

    Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc, has urged the public and private sectors to invest more in research and development aimed at promoting safety.

    The oil company noted that such investments should cut across the various sectors of the economy as is the case for the oil/gas and aviation sectors, among others.

    Its Operations Director, Effiong Okon, stated this at the Nigeria Professional Development Conference and Exhibition in Lagos. It was organised by the American Society of Safety Professionals (ASSP), Nigerian Chapter. The theme of the event was ‘Sustainable safety for national development.’

    According to Okon, safety is at the forefront of Seplat’s activities, which have enabled it to conduct its activities across the country with minimal footprint. “We approach safety, using the people, environment, asset and reputation model incorporated in our ‘safety first’ policy. We only execute projects that promote continuous reduction of environmental impact in our operations,” he said.

    He added: “We track offshoots from our operations and strive to reduce adverse effects from our facilities. Our internal use of gas flared reduced by over 95 per cent between 2011 and 2017.

    “Seplat has incorporated key programmes across all its facilities to achieve flares out by 2020 in line with keeping the environment safe. We comply with all regulatory requirements and benchmark our performance with international standards.”

    Okon said the company has seen continuous decline in safety incidents over the years and would continue to deploy safety training and coaching to hone safety consciousness and skills of its local contractors.

    Progressively managing challenges around establishment of support infrastructure for safety management, he noted, remained a priority to the company, adding that: “Since the taking over of our current assets, third-party interference on Seplat’s infrastructure had been significantly minimised.”

  • MOMAN backs Fed Govt’s Petroleum policy

    Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) has restated its support for government policy on the petroleum industry, including policy on deregulation, which remains the only way to achieving a robust and sustainable downstream petroleum industry.

    The National Petroleum Policy articulates a vision for Nigeria to become a nation “where hydrocarbons are used as a fuel for national economic growth and not simply as a source of income.” The Policy recognises that Nigeria “must develop a petroleum industry where the value added in oil stream is realized, combined with a move towards a gas based industrial economy and that the future for oil producers lies in developing a value added sector of refining and petrochemicals” given the volatility in oil and gas prices. The Policy envisions a strong refining sector, which will transition the refineries from selling only capacity to selling both capacity and products.

    Its Chairman, Adetunji Oyebanji, who stated this in a communiqué after MOMAN’s Chief Executive Officers’ (CEOs’) strategy retreat in Abuja on the way forward for a sustainable and viable downstream sector, said the two-day retreat recognised the outstanding work done by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to ensure continuous supply of petroleum products in 2018 and 2019, especially during the election period.

    The Federal Executive Council on July 19, 2017  approved the National Petroleum Policy (NPP), which articulates a vision for Nigeria to become a nation “where hydrocarbons are used as fuel for national economic growth and not simply as a source of income”.

    He also lauded the improved collaboration between NNPC and MOMAN, especially PPMC, which he said, contributed significantly to the outcome. He added that the association would proactively collaborate with government towards the development of the downstream petroleum industry, including renewable and alternative energies in Nigeria.

    The MOMAN chair said the association is poised to optimise and reduce supply chain costs through better collaboration and use of technology. He added that MOMAN will ensure development and compliance with an industry self-regulatory regime to support the industry regulator and raise Nigeria’s safety, technical and quality standards in fulfillment of the government’s national petroleum policy. “MOMAN is committed to improving customer service and the deployment of technology in the protection of the customer and ultimately the business.”

    Oyebanji assured of training and development of Nigerians in important disciplines, including engineering, management and strategy. According to him, the Association will also establish a think-tank of professionals to tackle industry issues and proffer workable solutions to identified problems.

    Part of its strategic policy objectives, he said, was to create a market-driven oil and gas industry, cost efficient storage, transportation and distribution of petroleum products.

    He reiterated MOMAN’s plans to strengthen its support to the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC); the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR); Petroleum  Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA); Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and other regulatory agencies, which impact the downstream to improve product transportation.

    “We also acknowledge that we need to support the regulatory agencies by adopting internal self-regulation practices if we want the industry to operate at acceptable international levels.

    “MOMAN will focus on service to the Nigerian customer at retail outlets and towards this purpose to use training of forecourt employees, managerial competencies development and technology to ensure that the Nigerian customer gets full value for the products and services he/she is paying for,” Oyebanji added.

    He also affirmed MOMAN’s intention “to have a more inclusive MOMAN and begin the process of opening our doors to new members, as well as share our savoir-faire and international best practices from our heritage and experience of over a hundred years in the industry”. He said the association will continue to strengthened partnership with NNPC to ensure seamless supply of petroleum products across the country.

  • NCDMB, stakeholders conclude on local content regulations

    The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has held its final phase of engagements with oil and gas industry stakeholders on the draft of Nigerian Content Ministerial Regulations (NCMR).

    The final forum was held in Lagos had in attendance representatives of the multinational and indigenous operating companies, service companies and select law firms working on the regulations.

    NCDMB Executive Secretary,   Simbi Wabote, an engineer, was represented at the workshop by Director Finance and Personnel Management, Mr. Isaac Yalah, who stated the key objective of the event, which was “the adoption of the updated draft Ministerial Regulations by industry stakeholders for onward transmittal to the Minister for ratification”.

    He said the Board believed strongly in collaborating with key stakeholders in the development of policies, which was why it convened a number of engagements to obtain the reviews and endorsement of industry players on the regulations.

    According to Yalah, Sections 36, 40, 41, 42, 47, 55 and 101 of the Nigerian Content Act empower the Minister of Petroleum Resources to make regulations that will foster the development of Nigerian content. He urged participants at the workshop to make robust inputs, which would be incorporated before the documents are dispatched to the Minister.

    NCDMB Legal Services Co-ordinator, Mrs. Rose Chukwuonwe, noted that previous deliberations on the ministerial regulations had been impactful and successful.

    The ministerial regulations covers Research & Development (R&D); Training, Capacity Development; Growth of Indigenous Capacity; Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Enforcement and Compliance Regulation; Registration of Operators and other professionals with Nigerian professional bodies; Technology transfer and Establishment of operations in Nigeria.