INVESTIGATION: NUPRC fails to enforce Nigeria’s anti-flaring law as methane emissions go unchecked (2)

This is the second and remaining a part of this investigation. Read the first part here.

When Nigeria enacted the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) in August 2021, it sought to shut one of many nation’s longest-running environmental failures and cut back methane amongst different emissions.

For many years, governments had promised to finish fuel flaring and cut back different technique of methane emission.

The PIA, relatively than relying solely on penalties, created a authorized framework for planning, commercialisation and regulatory enforcement.

Key among the many necessities was that each producer of pure fuel had to put together a Natural Gas Flare Elimination and Monetisation Plan (FEMP) exhibiting precisely the way it meant to finish fuel flaring.

The law additionally empowered the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) to seize flare fuel and allocate it to buyers able to changing it into helpful merchandise such as electrical energy, liquefied petroleum fuel (LPG), compressed pure fuel (CNG) and fertiliser.

Nearly 5 years after the Act got here into pressure, PREMIUM TIMES discovered that implementation has fallen far in need of the law’s ambition.

This investigation examined whether or not NUPRC, the regulator chargeable for imposing Nigeria’s anti-flaring legal guidelines and decreasing methane emissions, has fulfilled its authorized obligations.

The findings point out that the most important impediment to ending fuel flaring and decreasing methane emissions is the failure to implement that laws.

Deadline the regulator failed to meet

Section 108 of the PIA supplies that each licensee or lessee producing pure fuel shall, inside 12 months of the Act’s efficient date, submit a Natural Gas Flare Elimination and Monetisation Plan ready in accordance with laws issued by the NUPRC.

The law commenced in August 2021. Meaning, below the Act, operators had till August 2022 to submit the plan. However, the laws required to information the preparation of these plans didn’t but exist.

The NUPRC solely signed the Gas Flaring, Venting and Methane Emissions (Prevention of Waste and Pollution) Regulations in May 2023, virtually two years after the PIA turned law.

The laws had been later gazetted in July 2023 and by then, the statutory twelve-month interval contained within the Act had already expired by 11 months.

Rather than implement the timeline contained within the Act, Section 3(2) of the regulation launched a recent deadline, giving corporations six months from the graduation of the regulation to submit their FEMP.

With the brand new deadline, the NUPRC successfully reset the clock outdoors the August 2022 deadline offered within the Act. That sequence raises a key authorized query. Can a regulation issued by an company successfully lengthen a timeline already fastened by an Act of the National Assembly?

To perceive the implications, PREMIUM TIMES sought the opinion of an Akwa Ibom-based authorized practitioner, Ekemini Udim.

He mentioned the NUPRC’s delay basically weakened the law’s implementation. “It is disturbing that a provision of an Act of the National Assembly could be frustrated in this manner,” he mentioned.

“The Act clearly envisaged that regulations would already exist before the deadline for submitting FEMP.”

According to him, the accountability rested squarely with the regulator. “The companies can legitimately argue that they were waiting for the commission to issue the regulations required by the Act. If the commission had acted promptly, companies would have had no excuse.”

Mr Udim mentioned the failure ought to, subsequently, be considered primarily as a regulatory failure relatively than a company one.

“It is the commission that failed to put the legal machinery in place within the timeline established by Parliament.”

Mr Udim’s interpretation raises uncomfortable questions. If the regulator itself failed to adjust to the implementation timetable created by the PIA, can it successfully sanction corporations for delays that flowed partly from its personal inaction?

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 clarify why the laws had been issued virtually two years after the PIA got here into pressure and whether or not the delay contributed to non-compliance by operators.

The fee acknowledged receipt of the enquiry. When reminded on 4 August, its spokesperson mentioned the questions had been forwarded to the related departments and that responses had been nonetheless being compiled.

No substantive response has been acquired as of the time of this report.

Four years handed earlier than NUPRC acted

Long earlier than the primary allow was issued below the revived Nigerian Gas Flare Commercialisation Programme (NGFCP), the PIA had already handed the NUPRC powers over flare fuel.

Section 105(2) of the Act supplies that the fee “shall have the right to take, free of charge, natural gas that is destined to be flared at the flare stack.”

Instead of permitting operators to proceed burning related fuel into the ambiance, the law authorises the regulator to take possession of that fuel and allocate it to third-party buyers able to changing it into electrical energy, cooking fuel, CNG, fertiliser and different industrial merchandise.

The authorized mechanism is meant to obtain the targets of eliminating fuel flaring and unlocking financial worth from a useful resource that had for many years gone up in flames.

The 2023 Gas Flaring, Venting and Methane Emissions Regulations strengthened the provisions by setting out the operational framework by means of which the fee might train them.

Yet PREMIUM TIMES reported that the NUPRC solely issued flare-gas permits in December 2025 to 28 corporations, greater than 4 years after the PIA turned law.

During that interval, hundreds of thousands of normal cubic ft of related fuel continued to burn day by day, and improperly combusted fuel continued to emit methane throughout the Niger Delta’s oil fields.

PREMIUM TIMES, in its media enquiry on 28 July, amongst different questions to NUPRC, requested the flare websites allotted to every of the 28 corporations, the operators related to these websites and the dates every allow turned efficient.

The newspaper additionally requested information exhibiting how a lot flare fuel had been captured and commercialised between the issuance of the permits and 30 June 2026. NUPRC didn’t present this information. Checks on every of the 28 corporations with a useful web site didn’t yield this information.

However, the NUPRC’s newest risk on 8 September to revoke permits for fuel flare website awards over non-utilisation means that the law to take fuel destined for flaring could not have yielded the specified outcome 4 years after it was handed. PREMIUM TIMES reported that the fee has mentioned it is going to revoke permits the place buyers fail to display important progress in utilising the fuel flare websites.

Regulation to publish vented fuel information fails in compliance

The PIA and the 2023 laws issued by NUPRC moved past simply regulating operators. They additionally imposed obligations on the fee itself.

Section 23 of the Gas Flaring, Venting and Methane Emissions (Prevention of Waste and Pollution) Regulations requires the fee to put together and publish an annual report detailing the implementation of the laws.

Among the obligatory contents is complete data on fuel flaring and venting by producers, together with the full quantity of disposed fuel, disaggregated into flared fuel and vented fuel, expressed as a proportion of pure fuel produced.

The report is to be printed not later than 30 June annually for the previous calendar yr.

PREMIUM TIMES reviewed the fee’s 2023 and 2024 Annual Financial and Operational Performance Reports. Although each stories include intensive data on fuel flaring, they don’t publish information on fuel venting.

Unlike flaring, the place methane is a minimum of partially combusted, venting entails the direct launch of pure fuel into the ambiance. Scientific research point out that venting is the most important supply of methane emissions from upstream oil and fuel operations.

Beyond not publishing venting information, the publication isn’t well timed. Contrary to the 30 June deadline, as of 27 August 2026, NUPRC had not printed its report protecting 2025, lacking the statutory deadline by greater than a month.

PREMIUM TIMES requested the fee why the publication deadline had been missed and why venting information required below the laws had not been disclosed. The fee mentioned it will present responses sooner or later.

The delay means the general public can not independently assess the nation’s methane efficiency by means of venting for the latest reporting yr, regardless of laws requiring annual disclosure.

The reporting gaps on the a part of NUPRC additionally go away unanswered a central query on the coronary heart of Nigeria’s local weather commitments: If methane emissions aren’t comprehensively and well timed reported, how can progress towards decreasing them be measured?

Methane: The emissions Nigeria nonetheless struggles to measure

If fuel flaring is probably the most seen image of air pollution and poisonous emissions from Nigeria’s oil trade, methane is its least seen and most harmful.

Unlike flare stacks that illuminate the evening sky, methane escapes silently.

It leaks from valves, compressors, pipelines and storage amenities. This is referred to within the trade as fugitive emissions. It can also be launched by means of venting throughout upkeep and operational actions. It additionally escapes by means of incomplete flaring, which occurs throughout inefficient combustion when flare stacks fail to burn related fuel effectively.

Scientists think about methane some of the highly effective greenhouse gases chargeable for accelerating local weather change.

Over a 20-year interval, methane traps greater than 80 instances as a lot warmth as carbon dioxide, making even comparatively small releases substantial from a local weather perspective.

Recognising that risk, Nigeria positioned itself amongst African nations in search of to cut back methane emissions.

The nation signed the Global Methane Pledge, dedicated to eliminating routine fuel flaring, and included formidable methane-reduction targets into its Nationally Determined Contributions submitted below the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Nigeria, which at present leads Africa in methane air pollution, accounting for 16 per cent of whole sub-Saharan African methane emissions from the oil and fuel sector between 2010 and 2020, goals to cut back methane emissions from the oil and fuel sector by 60 per cent between 2031 and 2035 and reduce fugitive methane emissions by 95 per cent by 2050.

Those commitments had been the idea for the Guidelines for the Management of Methane and Greenhouse Gases in the Upstream Oil and Gas Sector, issued by NUPRC in 2022.

The following yr, the fee strengthened these necessities by means of the Gas Flaring, Venting and Methane Emissions (Prevention of Waste and Pollution) Regulations.

The laws require operators to set up methane inventories, implement Leak Detection and Repair (LDAR) programmes, keep Fugitive Methane Emission Data (FMED), submit Greenhouse Gas Emission Management Plans, preserve day by day flaring and venting data and progressively remove routine flaring.

However, implementing this demand has been a problem that NUPRC has publicly acknowledged. In an official directive issued on 11 April 2026, NUPRC acknowledged that implementing Nigeria’s methane pointers had encountered important obstacles.

The fee cited what it described as “technical capacity limitations and infrastructural Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) gaps” amongst operators.

MRV techniques are the spine of greenhouse fuel regulation. Without correct measurement, reporting and verification, regulators can not decide whether or not corporations are decreasing emissions or merely estimating them.

The fee admitted that these deficiencies had affected implementation of the methane pointers.

To deal with the issue, it directed operators to undertake standardised reporting templates for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Management Plans and greenhouse fuel inventories.

It additional instructed corporations to start reporting emissions utilizing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Tier 2 methodology beginning within the third quarter of 2026 earlier than transitioning to the extra correct, measurement-based Tier 3 methodology by January 2027.

This acknowledgement implies that almost three years after the methane laws got here into pressure, Nigeria continues to be working to set up the techniques required to measure emissions precisely. This factors to the truth that at present accessible methane information stays primarily based on engineering estimates relatively than direct subject measurements.

The Programme Lead for Energy, Extractive and Climate Justice of Policy Alert,  Edidiong Dickson, says that limitation complicates efforts to consider whether or not Nigeria is genuinely decreasing methane emissions.

When reporting turns into voluntary

The fee’s personal annual stories additionally reveal challenges in acquiring environmental data from operators.

In its 2024 Annual Financial and Operational Performance Report, NUPRC recognized amongst its principal constraints: delayed submission of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Management Plans; failure by operators to submit greenhouse fuel inventories; insufficient technical capability for methane leak detection; and shortages of specialized greenhouse fuel service suppliers.

Those findings align with the expertise of PREMIUM TIMES throughout this investigation.

Frontier Oil admitted that it had not submitted Fugitive Methane Emission Data to the fee regardless of the regulatory requirement and that no sanction adopted. The failure of Sterling Oil, Aradel Holding, and Heirs Energy to reply to PREMIUM TIMES’ enquiries raises suspicion of non-compliance.

The NUPRC itself has neither publicly disclosed the names of corporations that failed to submit obligatory methane stories nor printed data exhibiting enforcement actions taken towards defaulting operators.

That lack of transparency makes it tough to assess whether or not environmental obligations are being utilized persistently throughout the trade.

From environmental penalty to authorities income

If implementation gaps signify one problem, one other issues what occurs after corporations flare and vent fuel.

The PIA treats fuel flaring and venting as an offence.

Section 104 supplies that operators who flare or vent pure fuel are liable to pay prescribed penalties.

But the Act went additional than earlier laws by recognising that host communities bear the environmental brunt of fuel flaring and venting. Section 104(4) supplies that gas-flaring penalties needs to be utilized towards environmental remediation and aid for the host communities the place fuel is flared.

However, that association modified earlier this yr when, in February 2026, President Bola Tinubu issued an Executive Order directing that gas-flaring penalties be paid into the Federation Account.

The federal authorities argued that retaining the cash outdoors the Federation Account diminished revenues accessible for nationwide distribution.

According to an environmental professional and Executive Director of the Peoples Empowerment and Ecosystem Restoration Foundation, Mfon Gabriel, “that call reclassified gas-flaring penalties as a part of authorities income, making corporations see flaring not as an offence however as a method to contribute to authorities income.

“If government begins to see gas-flaring penalties primarily as revenue, there is a legitimate concern that eliminating gas flaring becomes financially less attractive, leading to more emissions while the host communities and the environment are sacrificed.”

According to NUPRC’s 2024 operational report reviewed by PREMIUM TIMES, though N700.75 billion had been remitted as fuel flare penalties between 2021 and 2024, liabilities arising from fuel flaring exceeded $936 million.

The figures in liabilities elevate one other accountability query.

Section 104 (2) of the PIA supplies that penalties are to be paid in the identical method as royalties.

In Nigeria, operators should pay royalties month-to-month after the month of manufacturing.

The continued existence of a whole lot of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in excellent liabilities raises questions past assortment, enforcement and restoration. It throws into query whether or not flaring and venting are nonetheless seen as punishment for air pollution, on condition that the penalties are typically allowed to be paid at comfort, therefore the liabilities.

For environmental advocate and Coordinator of Peace Point Development Foundation, Umo Isua-Ikoh, the larger challenge is that “Government should not become comfortable collecting penalties while flaring continues.”

“The objective should always be to eliminate gas flaring, venting and fugitive emissions, thereby reducing methane emissions so that our planet won’t be thrown into a climate crisis from which humans, especially the global south, are unable to recover due to global warming”.

Regardless, the findings of this investigation expose clear gaps within the enforcement of the PIA and different supporting laws.

Despite the authorized structure, in group after group visited throughout this investigation, residents judged these legal guidelines by their lived actuality.

Those experiences revealed that local weather governance is measured by whether or not laws issued change situations on the bottom and contribute to decreasing the local weather change plaguing communities.

This is the second and remaining a part of this investigation. Read the first part here.

This story is supported by the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID).