The Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) have jointly opposed a bill seeking to establish the National Commission for the Decommissioning of Oil and Gas Installations (NC-DOGI), 2024.
The united opposition was delivered at a public hearing organized by the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream), where top officials argued that creating the new agency would severely harm the industry’s stability and scare off investors.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Dr. Heineken Lokpobiri, and NUPRC Commission Chief Executive (CCE), Engr. Gbenga Komolafe, were emphatic that the proposed Commission is both unnecessary and contrary to global standards. They maintained that the bill would lead to a duplication of responsibilities already vested in the NUPRC under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021.
According to Lokpobiri, introducing a new regulatory layer would risk sending a negative signal to the international community, undermining the regulatory clarity and stability achieved by the PIA and jeopardizing recent efforts to attract new investments.
He added that the issue of community engagement concerning decommissioning is already adequately addressed by the Host Community Development Trust Fund.
Engr. Komolafe further emphasized that global best practices place the responsibility for decommissioning and abandonment with the upstream regulator, asserting that the NUPRC already possesses the full mandate for the entire life cycle of oil fields, including the planning, execution, and funding of decommissioning activities as stipulated under the PIA.
The CCE cautioned that separating decommissioning into a new agency would disrupt the comprehensive oversight that the NUPRC is meant to provide, particularly by fragmenting the regulatory process away from Field Development Plans (FDPs).
The NNPC also lent its voice to the opposition, with its Executive Vice-President, Upstream, Udobong Ntia noting that since decommissioning is a final-stage activity that occurs only at the end of a field’s life cycle, a standalone commission would have little meaningful work for extended periods.