… Creates Petroleum Industry Stakeholders Forum
*NUPRC launches project 1M barrel per day incremental production initiative in Q3 2024
By Onu Okorie
The Minister of petroleum resources oil Heineken Lokpobiri has disclosed that the industry stakeholders wants to address challenge of so many taxes and levies around oil and gas industry in Nigeria.
Speaking to journalists yesterday in Abuja after the maiden Petroleum Industry Stakeholders Forum meeting, the Minister explained that Nigeria has over 271 taxes and levies, the highest in the world as far as oil and gas is concerned but there’s a move to address it.
According to him, “We are also trying to tackle the concern about so many taxes and levies in the oil and gas sector.
“Part of the concern of Oil Producers Trade Section OPTS in Nigeria is that the country has over 271 taxes and levies, the highest in the world as far as oil and gas is concerned.
“These are issues we want to sit down and address. So there will always be challenges, life itself is a challenge.”
OPTS is a private industry group that is dedicated to the exploration, development, and production of Nigeria’s oil and gas resources in a sustainable and beneficial manner for the Nigerian people.
OPTS also represent the interests of 29 oil and gas companies that collectively operate approximately 85% of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry production, in partnership.
Speaking further, Lokpobiri said that the main reason for the stakeholders Forum in the oil sector is to bring all the players together to create stakeholders forum like the bankers committee in the monetary sector .
“We’re going to be meeting may quaternary or bi – monthly to discuss issues in the oil sector and be able to finetune how we can move forward from time to time.”
“But the whole idea is to have one forum where stakeholders and leadership in the sector could gather to address issues in the oil sector. Just like the capital market committee meets intermittently to address issues in the system.” He said.
The Minister also explained that the important of deregulation in the oil sector is for the prices to find it’s level.
“You will agree with me that before now negative news about fuel subsidy is always in the air, but today there’s no such issues again. It has been completely deregulated so when prices goes up in the international market it will reflect in the Nigerian market, likewise when it comes down the country will enjoy price reduction.
“I tried to do market survey when I was in Bayelsa, I discovered that some filling stations were selling, N1020, some N950, while some sell at N970 etc. it all depends.
“What government is more interested in as far as the sector is concerned is quality control and the right quantity in the distribution value chain. That’s if a consumer has requested for a certain quantity it’s important that the right quantity that is supposed to be dispensed is giving.
“The sector actually has it’s own peculiar challenges but what we want to do is to identify them and discuss ways to tackle it. Part of the challenges we had when we came on board was to see how we can ramp up production and we are already doing that. Yes we’re not where we want to be yet but we already getting there.”
“The other challenge we are equally addressing is queue in the filling stations. Also the other challenge we want to address is policy conflicts among agencies. A situation where one agency will initiate a policy and a sister agency will also develop another policy around what the other agency is doing there by creating conflict among the agencies.” He explained.
Speaking during the occasion, the Commission Chief Executive Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission NUPRC Engr Gbenga Komolafe said that the Commission launched the project 1M barrel per day
incremental production initiative during its 3rd year
anniversary. This initiative entails that every player
within the upstream value chain operates in one-
stop shop economic system as against operating in
silos thereby failing to leverage optimum capability
and economic of scale.
Also the Commission has developed a template sent
out to the industry to identify the “Needs “of every
player within the value chain with a view of meeting
the gaps arising from the needs of each player
which can be met by another player. This is
expected to create synergy, networking and
leveraging on the capabilities of every player within
the value chain.
The Commission in
2024 set an agenda for the industry through the
rolling out of Regulatory Action Plan (RAP) focused
on regulatory predictability, future licencing rounds
policy and implementation, unit cost of production
optimisation, implementation of a carbon credit
earnings framework for upstream operations,
business process improvements for operational
efficiency, promoting ease of entry and investment
retention, vacating entry barriers associated with
huge asset acquisition fees, deepening
transparency, accountability and elimination of
discriminatory practices amongst others. However,
in 2025, our focus as NUPRC will be on five points
agenda.
He however, assured that the Commission will continue to maximize the gains already achieved in the implementation of the Host Community Development Trust (HCDT)
using the HostComply Portal which is already
yielding positive results. Our commitment to
reducing carbon footprint in our operations remains
unchanged as we are poised to drive the industry to
achieve the desired results in this regard.
He further said that the Commercial Bid Conference for the 2024 Bid Round was conducted on 18 December 2024,
where winning and reserve bidders emerged for
each block on offer. The conference was
conducted real-time online via technology
adoption in the presence of representatives from
the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the
Federal Ministry of Finance, Nigeria Extractive
Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), and the
General Public, in accordance with the provisions of
Section 74 of the PIA, 2021. This is to ensure an open,
transparent, and competitive bid process as
provisioned in Section 73(1)(a) of the PIA 2021. The
adoption of a real-time online Commercial Bid
Conference which is first of its kind in the nation’s
over 70 years in exploration and production history is
to entrench transparency and attract investor’s
confidence.
