On Monday, during the side-lines of the inauguration of the boards of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority and the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission in Abuja, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, disclosed that the Department of Petroleum Resources, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency and the Petroleum Equalisation Fund are all officially scrapped and do not exist anymore.


With the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act, the NPRA and NURC had taken over the functions of the DPR, PPPRA and PEF as the law states that all the assets and even the staff of the DPR are to be invested on the commission and also in the authority. So that means the DPR doesn’t exist anymore. The law specifically repeals the DPR Act, the Petroleum Inspectorate Act, the Petroleum Equalisation Fund Act and the PPPRA Act. The law specifically repeals them and the law also provides for the staff and the jobs in those agencies to be protected.

The process for aligning the workers of the defunct agencies with the new regulatory bodies had already commenced, as the staff had to be rationalised and the authority has its staff coming from the defunct PEF, PPPRA and DPR. The commission has staff coming over from DPR and the process is going on for the next few weeks. The PIA provides for the upstream regulatory commission and the establishment of the midstream and downstream authority, which means the inauguration of the boards on Monday marked the beginning of the successor agencies in Nigeria's oil and gas industry.

Industry observers hope that the new law will further resolve certain issues associated with amended PSC, enabling several projects. Some pay reach final investment decision (FID), also the Industry observers see great opportunities in service contracts for these ongoing and upcoming deep-water projects, which are expected to offer substantial ancillary service for drilling and production systems as soon as the economy is reopened.