PIA: NEITI pushes for oil, gas contracts disclosure

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) is pushing for contracts’ disclosure under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) to improve transparency in the oil and gas sector.

Speaking at the maiden National Extractives Dialogue (NED) in Abuja on Tuesday, the Executive Secretary of NEITI, Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, said: “I am pleased to report that NEITI is currently coordinating the efforts to deliver on these important tasks and ensure that the provisions of the PIA regarding contract disclosures are activated.”

Orji stated that the EITI 2019 standard required Nigeria and others to disclose all contracts and licenses statuses for the exploration and exploitation of oil, gas or minerals from January, 2021.

He said the PIA 2021 also mandated the Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) to publish the texts of any new licence, lease or contract after approval.

The dialogue was co-hosted by NEITI and Spaces for Change (S4C) with support from the Ford Foundation.

The NEITI boss also urged for fairness in the global energy transition saying, “For Nigeria and other energy-dependent countries in the sub-region, we need to look at our contextual realities while engaging with our development partners on this discourse.”

The Executive

Director,

S4C, Victoria IbezimOhaeri, said participants from Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal would learn from one another; finding solutions to common problems for improving the resilience of national economies while preparing meaningfully for the transition to a low-carbon future.

The Group Managing Director of NNPCL, Mele Kyari, stated that natural resources from extracting industries were only beneficial when there was a clear and cost-effective management from which revenues were obtained.

Kyari further supported the need for transparency and openness from extracting industries in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria.