‘NUPRC operations not based in Lagos’

A staff of the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), has countered the explanations of its CEO that the posting of staff to the Lagos office has no connection with its operations at the Lagos Office. The source, who spoke with Daily Trust under the condition of anonymity due to the fear of his job, said […]

A staff of the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), has countered the explanations of its CEO that the posting of staff to the Lagos office has no connection with its operations at the Lagos Office.

The source, who spoke with Daily Trust under the condition of anonymity due to the fear of his job, said the Lagos office has little operations for the CEO to consider deploying 200 management staff to the area.

Recall that the CEO, Engineer Gbenga Komolafe, had told Daily Trust that its decision was technical or operational organisation.

Komolafe explained that the entities being regulated by the agency are located outside Abuja, thus, “You have to do physical oversight. You want to monitor the terminals we use. You don’t often do this remotely by staying in Abuja, you have to be on site. More than 50% or 60% of the operational activities are located within the Lagos zone.”

But the staff faulted the CEO’s claim that 50% – 60% of its operations occur in Lagos.

“This is because such operations relate to importation of Refined Petroleum Products, in fact you can add Dangote Refinery if you like but the regulatory oversight of these operations is the responsibility of its sister Agency, The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA). Therefore, the justification given by the Chief Executive for the movement of 200 staff to Lagos is invalid and the scenarios he painted are not correct.”

Instead, the source said activities of the agency are 90% in the Niger Delta region.

“There are over 300 oil producing fields and almost 270 production flow stations but only one (Aje field) is located in Lagos State. The rest are mostly located in the Niger Delta. For Onshore operations the crude oil and gas production facilities are located in Delta (39.8%), Bayelsa (26.8%), Rivers (20.5%), Edo (5.3%), Imo (4.4%), Abia (2.6%), Akwa Ibom (0.5%) and Ondo (0.1%) with none located in Lagos State. However, for Offshore operations, the facilities are located in Akwa Ibom (51.5%), Delta (25.3%), Rivers (12.3%), Ondo (5.9%), Bayelsa (4.7%) and Lagos (0.3%). While the field operations of these fields are monitored by regional offices that are Located in Lagos, Owerri, Port Harcourt and Warri, it can be seen from these ratios that Lagos Zonal office has the least activities to monitor, especially since Aje Field is currently not operational.”

The source added that Just like in the case of production, the operations of terminals are not directly monitored in Abuja, but in Port Harcourt, Warri and Lagos Regional offices with the Port Harcourt office overseeing the highest number of oil and gas terminals.