By Oke Peter
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu has warned that any oil company that cannot stop gas flaring by 2019 should stop producing in Nigeria.
Kachikwu stated that the Department of Petroleum Resources would become severe in upholding sanctions against defaulters by preventing them from oil production from next year.
The minister said these at the 2018 Buyers’ Forum/Stakeholders’ Engagement organised by the Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria Limited in Abuja.
He said any oil firm that could not end gas flaring ought not to be producing.
Kachikwu stated, “Government wants to end flare; oil companies still give lots of reasons why flare cannot be ended. Bottom line is cash call and money. But the reality is that whether or not we deal with cash call issues, it is not an optional agenda. It is a compulsive immediate agenda. It is destructive to the populace; it is intolerable in developed countries and it should not be tolerable here either.
“Any oil company that cannot find a way to end its flare ought not to be producing. And I have said to the DPR that beginning from next year, we are going to get quite frantic about this. Companies that cannot meet with extended periods, the issue is not how much you pay in terms of fines for flaring; the issue is that you will not produce. We need to begin to look at foreclosing of licences. It is that urgent.”
The minister also stated that the Federal Government would inaugurate the infrastructure revamp programme in November, adding that the initiative had the potential of attracting between $20bn and $30bn worth of investments into the petroleum industry.
Kachikwu stated that the quest to discourage gas flaring made the Federal Government to initiate the gas flare commercialisation programme.
He noted that future renewal of oil and gas licences would involve the assessment of the gas components and gas flare rate of each company seeking renewal.
“Some of the ones that have come recently for renewals have insisted that they are building massive gas processing plants and we are going to follow this right through so that the supply obligation, the processing facility, the treatment of gas and their submissions are very accurate and aggressive,” he said.
Kachikwu also emphasised the need for a critical implementation of the domestic supply obligation, which would be extended to domestic supply and processing obligation for both gas and crude oil.
He said the country needed to move away from the point of just producing these commodities, throwing them into the vessel and shipping them out, to the point of processing them locally.
The Managing Director, GACN, Morgan Okwoche, called for increased support for the gas company and highlighted the need for optimum collaboration among industry players in the development of the gas sector.
