Reps Vow To Recover $9bn Gas Flaring Fines From Erring Oil Firms

The House of Representatives said it will stop at nothing to recover the over $9 billion gas flaring fines imposed by the federal government on erring local and foreign companies operating in the oil and gas industry.

The House through its Ad-hoc Committee investigating gas flaring in the country also resolved to investigate the $277,258,304.72 disparity in the gas flare penalties recorded by the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) and Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission

(NUPRC).

The ad-hoc committee chairman, Hon. Ahmed Munir gave this indication Abuja while briefing journalists after the inaugural meeting/investigative hearing of the panel at the National Assembly Complex, Abuja on Monday.

Munir insisted that the 10th Assembly will do everything within its powers to ensure the recovery of all unpaid levies and compliance with extant laws and regulations in that regard.

“I can assure you that we will not take this lying down. There are two ways to go about it, we have the issues of penalties that are not paid, amounting to about $9 billion or thereabout, that one is there. We know how to recover it.

“Secondly, going forward, those that are still polluting, how do you ensure you get it down to zero and what are the penalties that are going to be out in place. Thirdly, the big difference between then and now is, we now have a PIA in place so how do you implement it? Where we have loopholes, that’s why we are here to hear from the people concerned.”

The Committee further summoned all the chief executive officers of 19 oil and gas companies, including Total/Mobil JV, Total/Oando JV, Total Energies, Azman Oil & Gas Limited, A. M Shafa Ltd and other organisations to appear before the Committee today.

In his presentation, the chairman, Gas Monitoring Committee of Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC),  Patrick Mgbebu said the penalties payable amounted to $3,465,299,226.55 and the value of gas would have been $12,403,000,001.20 if the gas was sold and not flared.

He said: “The Commission compared the data from NOSDRA with the data from NUPRC and the following observations were made: that the volume of gas flared according to NOSDRA and NUPRC were 838,667,211mscf and 700,975,019mscf respectively.

“The difference which is 137,692,192mscf indicated that the Federation Account was short changed. It should be noted that the comparison covered three years from 2020 to 2022.

“That the value of gas flared according to NOSDRA and NUPRC are $320,583,355.48 and $43,325,050.76 respectively. As such the variance indicated that the Federation Account was shortchanged by $277,258,304.72.”

In his submission, NOSDRA director general, Idris Musa, noted that the extant penalties on gas flaring are to serve as deterrent.  He, however, said the penalties on gas flaring should be increased.

Musa disclosed that a total of 3.8 billion scf was flared from 2013 to date while a total sum of $7.6 billion penalties are payable.

While declaring the sitting open, Speaker Tajudeen Abbas, noted that gas flaring and venting had been a significant environmental, economic, health and social concern in our country for many years.

Represented by the Chief Whip, Hon. Usman Kumo, the Speaker lamented the official records which indicated that Nigeria lost about $2.5 billion annually to gas flaring.