Posted by From ISMAIL OMIPIDAN, Abuja on
The Senate Committees on Environment, Petroleum (Upstream) and Gas Resources have threatened to shut down oil wells owing to their inability to meet the January 1, 2008 deadline for flares out.
The Senate Committees on Environment, Petroleum (Upstream) and Gas Resources have threatened to shut down oil wells owing to their inability to meet the January 1, 2008 deadline for flares out.
This was disclosed on Tuesday at an investigative public hearing held by the three committees jointly, even as they also called for a regime of penalties for oil companies that have continued to engage in gas flaring.
Speaking on the occasion, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Ecology, Senator Grace Bent, said: 'The continued degradation of the environment and the attending health hazards of flares by oil companies will no longer be tolerated. January 1, 2008 flare out deadline was still sacrosanct and as such defaulting companies should now be made to face sanctions for continued flares."
On his part, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Gas Resources, Senator Osita Izunaso, said: 'We are also worried that oil and gas companies in Nigeria are operating under the misconception that the flare out deadline is now December 31, 2008.
'The recognised gas flare deadline is January 1, 2008. We have to borrow from other countries that have been able to achieve gas flare out. We are losing a lot of money and many people are dying as a result of gas flaring."
However, the Minister of Environment and Housing, Mrs. Alima Tayo Alao, in her presentation, said the new date for gas flare out was now July 1, 2008.
Represented by Mr. Lawrence Ajibade, a director in her ministry, the minister argued that the agreement was reached at a meeting held on August 9, 2004 at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers in Abuja, adding that the meeting was called at the instance of the ministry where all stakeholders came with their different flare out date. She was, however, quick to add that since July 2008 was the authentic date, there was the need to put together implementation strategies so as to ensure that the deadline was kept to.
However, a representative of one of the stakeholders, Charles Adedeji, noted that the flare out deadline of 2008 was unrealistic and instead proposed 2012 as a possible date for gas flare out.
He further said that the oil companies were committed to the programme of gas flare out but said the operational difficulties being encountered by the operators which range from crisis in the Niger Delta, poor funding of NNPC shares and the implementation of the local content policy of the Federal Government was militating against plan.