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.