By Dipo Olowookere

The Senator representing Kogi Central Senatorial District at the National Assembly, Mrs Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, has submitted a petition against the Senate President, Mr Godswill Akpabio.

The female lawmaker last Friday publicly accused the former Governor of Akwa Ibom State of making inappropriate advances at her.

She also accused him of denying her of her privileges in the Senate because she refused to have romantic relationship with him.

At the plenary on Wednesday, Mrs Akpoti-Uduaghan, rising on Order 40, asked the Senate to probe the allegations against the number three citizen of the country.

After she submitted the petition, the Senate President referred the matter to the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions headed by Mr Neda Imasuen.

Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan was earlier billed to appear before the committee today, but she obtained a court order to stop her appearance.

Last Thursday, the Kogi lawmaker had an altercation with Mr Akpabio over a sitting arrangement at the upper chamber of the parliament.

Trouble started after she was asked to sit on another seat, but she rejected this, arguing that she was not pre-informed of the change in the sitting arrangement.

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

The Director-General of the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), Mr Chukwuemeka Woke, has commended Total Energies for its proactive steps towards ensuring effective surveillance and protection of oil facilities.

Mr Woke stated this at the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa, on Tuesday, while inspecting a West African Surveillance Platform (WASP) workshop for Total Energies’ personnel.

WASP, an industry cooperative, is an oil spill surveillance service for West and Central Africa, providing support such as oil spill consultancy, equipment hire, and wildlife services.

The event is part of a four-day Total Upstream Company of Nigeria’s 2025 Large Scale Exercise aimed at activating the National Oil Spill Contingency plan.

The NOSDRA helmsman commended Total Energies for taking steps towards training its personnel on how to ensure adequate surveillance and security of oil facilities.

“This gesture is commendable, it will equip your personnel to ensure effective surveillance and protection of oil installations,” he said.

He expressed the commitment of NOSDRA towards speedy detection of spill and swift response.

“We shall continue to actively collaborate with operators and other stakeholders to ensure effective delivery of our mandate

“We shall continue to be proactive by ensuring speedy detection where there is spill, and to respond accordingly,” he said.

By Adedapo Adesanya

NNPC Exploration and Production Limited (NEPL), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, will need a funding of circa $20 billion in capital and operating expenditures to effectively increase crude oil and gas production to drive Nigeria’s energy growth by 2030.

Speaking on a panel in Abuja at the just concluded Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES), the Managing Director of NEPL, Mr Nicolas Foucart, said it requires about $4 billion investment annually to boost Nigeria’s crude oil and gas production in the next five years.

Mr Foucart lamented that funding remains a key issue to grow production of both existing and new set of assets, but said the NNPC subsidiary has a clear strategy on this in terms of sustainable production, cost optimisation, decarbonisation and people.

The company also stated that aside from its over 370,000 barrels per day drilling target for 2025, it intends to raise this figure to 550,000 barrels per day by the end of 2027.

He noted that during the same period the NNPC E&P company will raise gas production to 3 billion cubic feet.

“So our plan is, from this year’s target, that we have 373,000 barrels average production for the year. That’s our target in 2025. To grow that to 550,000 barrels per day, that’s oil and condensate in the next three, four years. And from that production, we operate 65 per cent of that production.

“If I go to gas, today we are producing 1.4 BCF per day. And our strategic plan is showing that we should achieve close to 3 BCF over the next three, four years. Again, we operate 50 per cent of that production as NEPL.

“So, you can imagine behind that plan, there’s a lot of activities and a lot of investment. If we look at our strategic plan, we are talking about $4 billion per year. That’s NEPL’s equity. Over the next five years, that’s the money we need to invest between OPEX and CapEx.

“Definitely, where is that fund coming from? And how can we make sure it’s going to be there? So of course, as a company, the fund will come from profit that we are generating. So it’s that’s the self-funding aspect, but also we’ve got external funding.

“The way we’ve done that in NEPL, we’ve got financing entities, also providing some technical services in certain assets. So we operate those assets, and then there’s a joint team executing the activities. But it’s just to secure those funds from the shareholders, because that’s what it is when it’s self-funded,” he added.

Mr Foucart pointed out that instead of sharing dividends, the NEPL could deploy the fund for financing its activities, explaining that either from shareholders or external entities, it wants to make sure that there is a business case and value behind all the projects.

He observed that the E&P company was gradually moving from short-term thinking to a long-term vision of how things should be done.

“Well, last year, the average production of NEPL was 244,000 barrels. Today, we’re at 310,000, working towards the 370,000 barrels average for the year.

“So, that’s a 30 per cent increase that we achieved, basically, in 12 months. That’s our strategy, giving confidence, and then we’ve got those finance, technical service agreements and assets on the gas,” he added.