By Abubakar Yunusa
Gbenga Komolafe, chief executive officer (CEO) of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), says Nigeria’s production sharing contract (PSC) with TotalEnergies will support Nigeria’s transition to a gas-powered economy.
In an interview with Reuters on Wednesday, he said the deal will serve as a template for future agreements.
The NUPRC CEO said the contract marks the country’s first to be implemented under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), which is designed to boost Nigeria’s gas production.
“This new PSC (production-sharing contract) with TotalEnergies represents a policy shift, in line with the PIA, which aims to unlock Nigeria’s gas potential and support the transition to a gas-powered economy,” Komolafe said.
He said all new deepwater and frontier acreage production sharing contracts will likely adopt similar gas terms, and it sets a model for dedicated gas development contracts.
On September 1, NUPRC signed a production sharing contract (PSC) with TotalEnergies and South Atlantic Petroleum (Sapetro) for petroleum prospecting licences (PPL) 2000 and 2001.
The oil blocks, said to be awarded in the 2024 licensing round, cover about 2,000 square kilometres in the Niger Delta Basin.
On August 30, the upstream regulator said Nigeria’s daily gas production was 7.59 billion standard cubic feet per day (bscfd) in July.
The agency said average daily gas-to-power supply hit 862.86 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscf/d) in July, up by 3.48 percent from 833.86 mmscf/d in June — representing the highest in three months.
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