Commission Plans Fast Licensing For Indigenous Oil Firms
The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission says it will support indigenous oil and companies with the right policies and regulations to grow.
The commission Chief Executive, NUPRC, Mr Gbenga Komolafe, stated this during a visit to the exhibition booth of Green Energy International Limited at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas, United States of America.
Komolafe said “the oil and gas industry regulator would continue to support companies in the ranks of Green Energy International with a quick turnaround time for licensing and other necessary approvals needed to grow their business.”
He said at a time when funding for oil and gas projects was becoming difficult due to policies around energy transition and a deliberate shift to renewable energy projects, Green Energy International had been able to secure funding for its projects.
According to him, “the ability of the company to secure funding for its various projects is a testament that it is on the right track and as such, needed all the right support to grow.”
Komolafe said;‘‘If you look at what the company has done. You will discover that they have tried to leverage on in-country capability and that is in alignment with what NUPRC is doing. We have come here as a commission to give them encouragement and to assure the company that the NUPRC will give them all the backing as a business enabler.”
Komolafe said NUPRC as a business enabler would ensure that its policies and regulations were enabling enough to incentivise businesses to grow.
In growing businesses, he said “companies would be requiring different types of permits and licenses for operational efficiency to reduce unit cost of production in a manner to make them competitive.”
He maintained that to increase operational efficiency, the NUPRC was working to ensure that the turnaround time for issuing permits and licenses was reduced drastically.
Also speaking, the Chairman of Green Energy International, Prof Anthony Adegbulugbe, said the company which was incorporated in 2006 is the operator of the Otakikpo marginal field in Oil Mining Lease(OML) 11.
He explained that the company was set up to explore all the opportunities in the oil and gas value chain for the overall benefit of its stakeholders and the Nigerian economy.
According to him, “the mandate of the company is to create localised domestic markets based on small scale gas opportunities in its local host communities, Nigeria and Africa at large.”
‘‘In 2010, the Nigerian Government decided to implement a World Bank study on Small Scale Gas Utilisation and the Otakikpo Marginal Field was awarded to Green Energy to undertake the pilot project. The implementation of this project will involve the installation of LPG processing and bottling plants,’ Adegbulugbe stated.
The Green Energy Chairman said since it began operations, it had recorded 5 Million cumulative man-hours without lost-time injury.
