Gas flaring: Senate to go tough on firms

Worried by the excessive waste of gas through flaring, the Senate Committee on Gas has threatened to go tough on errant oil firms by ensuring the enforcement of necessary legislation against it from next year.



The Chairman of the committee, Senator BasseyAkpan, who stated this in an interview with our correspondent, said the decision was part of the strategies being employed by the upper legislative chamber to ensure alternative sources of revenue for the country.

Akpan noted that the country could no longer afford to watch and see one of its major revenue generating natural resources being wasted simply because there was weak enforcement of necessary legislation that could guard against it.

He noted that the major concern of his committee was to ensure that the Act of the National Assembly enacted in 2008, which defined the domestic gas supply obligation of every international oil company operating in Nigeria, was adhered to.

Akpan said, “The law also stipulates the penalty on issue of gas flaring; we will soon engage the stakeholders, starting with the regulators like the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Department of Petroleum Resources and the gas aggregators.”