That is the second one and ultimate a part of this investigation. Learn the first part here.
Wrooster Nigeria enacted the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) in August 2021, it sought to near one of the crucial nation’s longest-running environmental screw ups and cut back methane amongst different emissions.
For many years, governments had promised to finish fuel flaring and cut back different method of methane emission.
The PIA, quite than depending only on consequences, created a criminal framework for making plans, commercialisation and regulatory enforcement.
Key a few of the necessities was once that each and every manufacturer of herbal fuel needed to get ready a Herbal Gasoline Flare Removal and Monetisation Plan (FEMP) appearing precisely the way it meant to finish fuel flaring.
The legislation additionally empowered the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) to clutch flare fuel and allocate it to buyers in a position to changing it into helpful merchandise reminiscent of electrical energy, liquefied petroleum fuel (LPG), compressed herbal fuel (CNG) and fertiliser.
Just about 5 years after the Act got here into drive, PREMIUM TIMES discovered that implementation has fallen a ways in need of the legislation’s ambition.
This investigation tested whether or not NUPRC, the regulator chargeable for imposing Nigeria’s anti-flaring rules and lowering methane emissions, has fulfilled its criminal duties.
The findings point out that the most important impediment to finishing fuel flaring and lowering methane emissions is the failure to put into effect that regulation.
Time limit the regulator failed to satisfy
Section 108 of the PIA supplies that each and every licensee or lessee generating herbal fuel shall, inside twelve months of the Act’s efficient date, put up a Herbal Gasoline Flare Removal and Monetisation Plan ready according to laws issued via the NUPRC.
The legislation commenced in August 2021. Which means, beneath the Act, operators had till August 2022 to put up the plan. Then again, the laws required to steer the preparation of the ones plans didn’t but exist.
The NUPRC handiest signed the Gasoline Flaring, Venting and Methane Emissions (Prevention of Waste and Air pollution) Regulations in Would possibly 2023, nearly two years after the PIA become legislation.
The laws have been later gazetted in July 2023 and via then, the statutory twelve-month duration contained within the Act had already expired via 11 months.
Relatively than put into effect the timeline contained within the Act, Segment 3(2) of the legislation offered a recent cut-off date, giving corporations six months from the graduation of the legislation to put up their FEMP.
With the brand new cut-off date, the NUPRC successfully reset the clock outdoor the August 2022 cut-off date equipped within the Act. That series raises a key criminal query. Can a legislation issued via an company successfully prolong a timeline already mounted via an Act of the Nationwide Meeting?
To grasp the consequences, PREMIUM TIMES sought the opinion of an Akwa Ibom-based criminal practitioner, Ekemini Udim.
He mentioned the NUPRC’s lengthen basically weakened the legislation’s implementation. “It’s irritating {that a} provision of an Act of the Nationwide Meeting may well be pissed off on this method,” he mentioned.
“The Act obviously envisaged that laws would exist already prior to the cut-off date for filing FEMP.”
In step with him, the duty rested squarely with the regulator. “The corporations can legitimately argue that they have been looking forward to the fee to factor the laws required via the Act. If the fee had acted promptly, corporations would have had no excuse.”
Mr Udim mentioned the failure must, due to this fact, be considered basically as a regulatory failure quite than a company one.
“It’s the fee that failed to place the criminal equipment in position throughout the timeline established via Parliament.”
Mr Udim’s interpretation raises uncomfortable questions. If the regulator itself did not conform to the implementation timetable created via the PIA, can it successfully sanction corporations for delays that flowed partially from its personal inactiveness?
On 28 July, PREMIUM TIMES despatched an in depth media enquiry to the Head of Media and Strategic Communications of NUPRC, Eniola Akinkuotu, asking the fee to provide an explanation for why the laws have been issued nearly two years after the PIA got here into drive and whether or not the lengthen contributed to non-compliance via operators.
The fee said receipt of the enquiry. When reminded on 4 August, its spokesperson mentioned the questions were forwarded to the related departments and that responses have been nonetheless being compiled.
No substantive reaction has been won as of the time of this file.
4 years handed prior to NUPRC acted
Long prior to the primary allow was once issued beneath the revived Nigerian Gasoline Flare Commercialisation Programme (NGFCP), the PIA had already passed the NUPRC powers over flare fuel.
Segment 105(2) of the Act supplies that the fee “shall have the best to take, without cost, herbal fuel this is destined to be flared on the flare stack.”
As a substitute of permitting operators to proceed burning related fuel into the ambience, the legislation authorises the regulator to take possession of that fuel and allocate it to third-party buyers in a position to changing it into electrical energy, cooking fuel, CNG, fertiliser and different commercial merchandise.
The criminal mechanism is meant to reach the goals of getting rid of fuel flaring and unlocking financial worth from a useful resource that had for many years long past up in flames.
The 2023 Gasoline Flaring, Venting and Methane Emissions Laws strengthened the provisions via environment out the operational framework by which the fee may workout them.
But PREMIUM TIMES reported that the NUPRC handiest issued flare-gas allows in December 2025 to twenty-eight corporations, greater than 4 years after the PIA become legislation.
All over that duration, thousands and thousands of usual cubic toes of related fuel endured to burn day-to-day, and improperly combusted fuel endured to emit methane around the Niger Delta’s oil fields.
PREMIUM TIMES, in its media enquiry on 28 July, amongst different inquiries to NUPRC, asked the flare websites allotted to every of the 28 corporations, the operators related to the ones websites and the dates every allow become efficient.
The newspaper additionally asked information appearing how a lot flare fuel were captured and commercialised between the issuance of the allows and 30 June 2026. NUPRC didn’t supply this knowledge. Tests on every of the 28 corporations with a practical site didn’t yield this knowledge.
Then again, the NUPRC’s newest danger on 8 September to revoke allows for fuel flare web page awards over non-utilisation means that the legislation to take fuel destined for flaring won’t have yielded the specified end result 4 years after it was once handed. PREMIUM TIMES reported that the fee has mentioned it’s going to revoke allows the place buyers fail to reveal vital development in utilising the fuel flare websites.
Law to submit vented fuel information fails in compliance
The PIA and the 2023 laws issued via NUPRC moved past simply regulating operators. Additionally they imposed duties at the fee itself.
Segment 23 of the Gasoline Flaring, Venting and Methane Emissions (Prevention of Waste and Air pollution) Laws calls for the fee to organize and submit an annual file detailing the implementation of the laws.
A number of the necessary contents is complete data on fuel flaring and venting via manufacturers, together with the overall quantity of disposed fuel, disaggregated into flared fuel and vented fuel, expressed as a share of herbal fuel produced.
The file is to be revealed no longer later than 30 June every yr for the previous calendar yr.
PREMIUM TIMES reviewed the fee’s 2023 and 2024 Annual Monetary and Operational Efficiency Reviews. Even supposing each experiences include intensive data on fuel flaring, they don’t submit information on fuel venting.
Not like flaring, the place methane is no less than partly combusted, venting comes to the direct unlock of herbal fuel into the ambience. Medical research point out that venting is the most important supply of methane emissions from upstream oil and fuel operations.
Past no longer publishing venting information, the e-newsletter isn’t well timed. Opposite to the 30 June cut-off date, as of 27 August 2026, NUPRC had no longer revealed its file masking 2025, lacking the statutory cut-off date via greater than a month.
PREMIUM TIMES requested the fee why the e-newsletter cut-off date were overlooked and why venting information required beneath the laws had no longer been disclosed. The fee mentioned it might supply responses in the end.
The lengthen method the general public can not independently assess the rustic’s methane efficiency thru venting for the latest reporting yr, in spite of laws requiring annual disclosure.
The reporting gaps at the a part of NUPRC additionally go away unanswered a central query on the middle of Nigeria’s local weather commitments: If methane emissions aren’t comprehensively and well timed reported, how can development towards lowering them be measured?
Methane: The emissions Nigeria nonetheless struggles to measure
If fuel flaring is essentially the most visual image of air pollution and poisonous emissions from Nigeria’s oil business, methane is its least visual and most threatening.
Not like flare stacks that remove darkness from the evening sky, methane escapes silently.
It leaks from valves, compressors, pipelines and garage amenities. That is referred to within the business as fugitive emissions. Additionally it is launched thru venting all the way through repairs and operational actions. It additionally escapes thru incomplete flaring, which occurs all the way through inefficient combustion when flare stacks fail to burn related fuel successfully.
Scientists imagine methane one of the crucial tough greenhouse gases chargeable for accelerating local weather trade.
Over a 20-year duration, methane traps greater than 80 instances as a lot warmth as carbon dioxide, making even rather small releases really extensive from a local weather standpoint.
Recognising that danger, Nigeria situated itself amongst African international locations looking for to scale back methane emissions.
The rustic signed the Global Methane Pledge, dedicated to getting rid of regimen fuel flaring, and included bold methane-reduction goals into its Nationally Determined Contributions submitted beneath the United Countries Framework Conference on Local weather Alternate.
Nigeria, which recently leads Africa in methane air pollution, accounting for 16 in step with cent of overall sub-Saharan African methane emissions from the oil and fuel sector between 2010 and 2020, targets to scale back methane emissions from the oil and fuel sector via 60 in step with cent between 2031 and 2035 and minimize fugitive methane emissions via 95 in step with cent via 2050.
The ones commitments have been the root for the Guidelines for the Management of Methane and Greenhouse Gases in the Upstream Oil and Gas Sector, issued via NUPRC in 2022.
The next yr, the fee bolstered the ones necessities during the Gasoline Flaring, Venting and Methane Emissions (Prevention of Waste and Air pollution) Laws.
The laws require operators to ascertain methane inventories, put into effect Leak Detection and Restore (LDAR) programmes, care for Fugitive Methane Emission Knowledge (FMED), put up Greenhouse Gasoline Emission Control Plans, stay day-to-day flaring and venting information and step by step do away with regimen flaring.
Then again, enforcing this call for has been a problem that NUPRC has publicly said. In an reliable directive issued on 11 April 2026, NUPRC said that enforcing Nigeria’s methane tips had encountered vital hindrances.
The fee cited what it described as “technical capability barriers and infrastructural Size, Reporting and Verification (MRV) gaps” amongst operators.
MRV methods are the spine of greenhouse fuel legislation. With out correct size, reporting and verification, regulators can not resolve whether or not corporations are lowering emissions or simply estimating them.
The fee admitted that those deficiencies had affected implementation of the methane tips.
To deal with the issue, it directed operators to undertake standardised reporting templates for Greenhouse Gasoline Emissions Control Plans and greenhouse fuel inventories.
It additional urged corporations to start out reporting emissions the use of the Intergovernmental Panel on Local weather Alternate Tier 2 method beginning within the 0.33 quarter of 2026 prior to transitioning to the extra correct, measurement-based Tier 3 method via January 2027.
This acknowledgement signifies that just about 3 years after the methane laws got here into drive, Nigeria remains to be running to ascertain the methods required to measure emissions as it should be. This issues to the truth that recently to be had methane information stays according to engineering estimates quite than direct box measurements.
The Programme Lead for Power, Extractive and Local weather Justice of Policy Alert, Edidiong Dickson, says that limitation complicates efforts to judge whether or not Nigeria is in actuality lowering methane emissions.
When reporting turns into voluntary
The fee’s personal annual experiences additionally expose demanding situations in acquiring environmental data from operators.
In its 2024 Annual Monetary and Operational Efficiency Report, NUPRC recognized amongst its major constraints: not on time submission of Greenhouse Gasoline Emissions Control Plans; failure via operators to put up greenhouse fuel inventories; insufficient technical capability for methane leak detection; and shortages of specialized greenhouse fuel provider suppliers.
The ones findings align with the revel in of PREMIUM TIMES all the way through this investigation.
Frontier Oil admitted that it had no longer submitted Fugitive Methane Emission Knowledge to the fee in spite of the regulatory requirement and that no sanction adopted. The failure of Sterling Oil, Aradel Protecting, and Heirs Power to reply to PREMIUM TIMES’ enquiries raises suspicion of non-compliance.
The NUPRC itself has neither publicly disclosed the names of businesses that did not put up necessary methane experiences nor revealed information appearing enforcement movements taken towards defaulting operators.
That loss of transparency makes it tricky to evaluate whether or not environmental duties are being implemented constantly around the business.
From environmental penalty to executive earnings
If implementation gaps constitute one problem, some other considerations what occurs after corporations flare and vent fuel.
The PIA treats fuel flaring and venting as an offence.
Segment 104 supplies that operators who flare or vent herbal fuel are susceptible to pay prescribed consequences.
However the Act went additional than earlier laws via recognising that host communities undergo the environmental brunt of fuel flaring and venting. Segment 104(4) supplies that gas-flaring consequences must be implemented towards environmental remediation and reduction for the host communities the place fuel is flared.
Then again, that association modified previous this yr when, in February 2026, President Bola Tinubu issued an Govt Order directing that gas-flaring consequences be paid into the Federation Account.
The government argued that conserving the cash outdoor the Federation Account decreased revenues to be had for nationwide distribution.
In step with an environmental skilled and Govt Director of the Peoples Empowerment and Ecosystem Restoration Foundation, Mfon Gabriel, “that call reclassified gas-flaring consequences as a part of executive earnings, making corporations see flaring now not as an offence however as a way to give a contribution to executive earnings.
“If executive starts to peer gas-flaring consequences basically as earnings, there’s a professional fear that getting rid of fuel flaring turns into financially much less horny, resulting in extra emissions whilst the host communities and the surroundings are sacrificed.”
In step with NUPRC’s 2024 operational file reviewed via PREMIUM TIMES, despite the fact that N700.75 billion were remitted as fuel flare consequences between 2021 and 2024, liabilities bobbing up from fuel flaring exceeded $936 million.
The figures in liabilities carry some other duty query.
Segment 104 (2) of the PIA supplies that consequences are to be paid in the similar method as royalties.
In Nigeria, operators will have to pay royalties per 30 days after the month of manufacturing.
The continuing life of loads of thousands and thousands of bucks in remarkable liabilities raises questions past assortment, enforcement and restoration. It throws into query whether or not flaring and venting are nonetheless observed as punishment for air pollution, for the reason that the consequences are from time to time allowed to be paid at comfort, therefore the liabilities.
For environmental recommend and Coordinator of Peace Point Development Foundation, Umo Isua-Ikoh, the larger factor is that “Govt must no longer turn out to be comfy accumulating consequences whilst flaring continues.”
“The target must all the time be to do away with fuel flaring, venting and fugitive emissions, thereby lowering methane emissions in order that our planet received’t be thrown right into a local weather disaster from which people, particularly the worldwide south, are not able to get well because of international warming”.
Regardless, the findings of this investigation divulge transparent gaps within the enforcement of the PIA and different supporting laws.
In spite of the criminal structure, in neighborhood after neighborhood visited all the way through this investigation, citizens judged the ones rules via their lived truth.
The ones reports printed that local weather governance is measured via whether or not laws issued trade stipulations at the floor and give a contribution to lowering the local weather trade plaguing communities.
That is the second one and ultimate a part of this investigation. Learn the first part here.
This tale is supported via the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Building (CJID).
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