Economy
NOSDRA Raises Alarm over Continuous Oil Spill in Bayelsa
By Adedapo Adesanya
The National Oil Spills Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA) has said that the oil spill reported at an oil well within Oil Mining Lease (OML) 29 in Bayelsa State was yet to abate.
This was disclosed by the Director-General of the agency, Mr Idris Musa, in his reaction to the development, noting that after officials on a visit discovered that the intensity of the leak was hampering investigations at the incident site.
He said, “A spill was reported by AITEO at her Santa Barbara well 1 wellhead on November 5, 2021. A joint investigation visit to the site was carried out on November 6, 2021.
“Due to the continuous spraying of crude oil from the wellhead, the cause of the spill was not determined by the joint investigation team, which comprised NOSDRA, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), State Ministry of Environment and Community representatives.
“AITEO was directed to shut in the well so that proper joint investigation will be conducted on this facility.
“Recovery of free phase oil was ongoing as at the time of this visit. AITEO was also directed to deploy more booms to contain the spilt crude oil.
“As of November 10, 2021, and according to AITEO, efforts are still ongoing to ensure that the well is shut in within the shortest possible time,” Mr Musa said.
Meanwhile, the company – Aiteo Eastern Exploration and Production, in a statement on Wednesday, said it was yet to ascertain the volume of the crude that had been discharged into the surrounding environment.
The statement signed by the spokesman of the company, Mr Mathew Ndianabasi also said the oil firm suspected sabotage as the cause of the spill.
But, Mr Iniruo Wills, an Environmentalist and former Commissioner for Environment in Bayelsa dismissed the suggestion of sabotage, given that investigation into the cause of the leak was yet to commence.
“Is anyone ascribing it to sabotage? Anybody or official ascribing this recklessly caused ecological disaster to sabotage needs a psychiatric examination.
“You cannot keep raping communities and at the same time tarring them with the brush of collective criminalization.
“There was a massive spill that went on for a week at that same Santa Barbara Well 1 in OML 29 operated by Aiteo over two years ago.
“Like roughly thirty or more other spills spanning across that same oil bloc in the few years since Aiteo started operating the bloc, that 2019 spill from the same well has neither been cleaned up, remediated nor compensated for”, he said.
Mr Wills added: “The community is still engaging with regulators – particularly NOSDRA – and AITEO, practically begging for redress while still suffering the unmitigated impacts of that spill and many others.
“This is even after a post-spill impact assessment was eventually conducted, after several months of pressing for it.
“Now, this mega spill disaster is going on from that same well for about a week now, in a country with virtually zero installed spill-response capacity.
“Several oil industry experts who viewed the video clip have likened it to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico Deepwater Horizon disaster and the 2012 Chevron KS Endeavour catastrophe in Koluama, Nigeria.
“And they have pointed to the likelihood of it being a gas pressure release from pent-up gas over the years from a capped and abandoned non-producing well.
“Beyond Aiteo, whose operations have made its predecessor, Shell, look like saints, this incident once again challenges the Government of Nigeria and industry regulators to wake up to their statutory duties.
“It makes the Nigerian delegation to the ongoing COP 26 Climate Change summit in Glasgow look like they went on an idle and pretentious frolic.
“While oil and gas are gushing out uncontrolled on poor populations and the corporate culprits continue to make callous diversionary statements with impunity as if they considered the entire Nigerian public to be foolish and gullible.”
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Senate has passed a bill to repeal and re-enact the law establishing the National Insurance Commission (NAICOM), paving the way for the regulatory agency to be renamed the Insurance Regulatory Commission (IRC).
The legislation, titled the Insurance Regulatory Commission (Establishment) Bill, 2026, was passed after the Senate considered and adopted the report of its committee on banking, insurance and other financial institutions.
The Chairman of the committee, Mr Adetokunbo Abiru, the senator representing Lagos East, who presented the report, stated that the proposed legislation was necessary because the existing National Insurance Commission Act of 1997 had become outdated and no longer reflected the realities of Nigeria’s evolving insurance industry or global regulatory standards.
According to the Senate, the decision to change the Commission’s name was informed by the need to eliminate confusion associated with the existing designation and to better reflect the institution’s regulatory mandate within Nigeria’s insurance industry.
The bill also provides legal protection for the commission and its officers against adverse claims arising from the lawful execution of their statutory duties.
However, he noted that the commission’s enabling law had become obsolete, exposing significant regulatory gaps that required urgent legislative intervention.
‘The current National Insurance Commission Act 1997 is outdated and does not adequately address the emerging economic growth, needs and development of the insurance business,” the lawmaker said.
He explained that the new legislation seeks to strengthen the independence of the commission by empowering it to make regulatory decisions without undue influence in the country’s insurance sector.
According to him, the bill also enhances the commission’s authority to exchange information and collaborate with domestic and international regulatory bodies, issue regulations, guidelines, standards and directives on insurance-related matters, and intervene more effectively in financially distressed insurance companies to protect policyholders and preserve financial stability.
This marks yet another move to strengthen the country’s insurance sector following the enactment of the Nigerian Insurance Industry Reform Act (NIIRA) of 2025 and the industry-wide recapitalisation exercise, which will wrap up by July 31.
By Adedapo Adesanya
About 143 companies that successfully passed the technical and prequalification stages of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission’s (NUPRC) 2025 Licensing Round will, today, compete for 50 oil and gas blocks at the commercial bid conference in Abuja, the final stage in the allocation process for the assets.
The commission said only the prequalified companies have been invited to attend the event, which will hold at the Conference Centre of the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, stressing that participation is strictly by invitation.
The commercial bid conference will determine the successful bidders for oil and gas assets located across Nigeria’s producing and frontier basins.
The 50 blocks comprise 16 onshore blocks and 18 shallow water blocks in the Niger Delta, one deep offshore block, three onshore blocks in the Benin Basin, four in the Anambra Basin, four in the Chad Basin, and four in the Benue Trough.
According to the commission, the winning bids will be determined through a transparent evaluation process based on clearly defined commercial parameters. These include the signature bonus offered by bidders, the proposed work programme commitment and the level of performance security provided. The final selection will be based on a weighted technical and commercial score.
The licensing round is being conducted under the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, which requires a transparent and competitive process for the award of petroleum assets.
NUPRC had announced the commencement of the 2025 Licensing Round on November 11, 2025, before opening the online bid portal on December 1, 2025, to enable interested companies to register and participate in the exercise.
To ensure prospective investors fully understood the requirements, the commission organised a pre-bid conference on January 14, 2026, at Eko Hotels and Suites, Lagos. The event provided detailed explanations on the licensing guidelines and bidding procedures to registered participants and other stakeholders.
Registration and submission of prequalification documents closed on February 27, 2026, while the prequalification evaluation was completed on March 16, 2026.
NUPRC disclosed that 286 companies initially submitted applications for prequalification.
Following the evaluation process, 196 companies were cleared to participate in the technical and commercial bid stages.
The prequalified 143 companies eventually submitted a total of 200 bids for the available oil and gas blocks. These companies are now set to compete at the commercial bid conference, where the financial offers will be opened and evaluated to determine the eventual winners.
The licensing round is expected to attract fresh investment into Nigeria’s upstream petroleum sector, boost exploration activities across both producing and frontier basins, increase crude oil and gas reserves, and support the country’s drive to grow production and government revenue.
It also underscores the regulator’s commitment to implementing a transparent, competitive and investor-friendly licensing regime under the Petroleum Industry Act.
By Adedapo Adesanya
The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has retained all key monetary policy parameters following the conclusion of its two-day meeting on July 21, 2026, on Tuesday, maintaining its tight monetary policy stance to curb inflation and support macroeconomic stability.
According to the Governor of the apex bank, Mr Yemi Cardoso, who chaired the committee, the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR), which serves as the benchmark interest rate, remains at 26.50 per cent. The MPC also retained the asymmetric corridor around the MPR at +50 basis points and -450 basis points.
In addition, the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) for commercial banks was left unchanged at 45.00 per cent, while the CRR for merchant banks remains at 16.00 per cent. The committee also retained the CRR on non-Treasury Single Account (Non-TSA) public sector deposits at 75.00 per cent, with the liquidity ratio at 30.00 per cent.
The decision reflects the apex bank’s continued commitment to containing inflationary pressures through a restrictive monetary policy while safeguarding the resilience of Nigeria’s financial system amid ongoing macroeconomic adjustments.
By keeping all policy tools unchanged, the MPC signalled its intention to continue managing excess liquidity in the banking sector and maintain stability in financial markets.
The move is also expected to provide greater policy certainty for investors and businesses monitoring the country’s monetary policy direction.
The latest decision also means borrowing costs are likely to remain elevated in the near term as the central bank continues to prioritise price stability over monetary easing.
Analysts had expected the CBN committee to retain the rate after Nigeria’s headline inflation came in at 15.91 per cent as of June 2026, marking a slight decline from 15.93 per cent in May.
However, even as overall price growth has moderated significantly compared to previous periods, food inflation remains a persistent challenge, accelerating to 17.52 per cent in June.
