Nigeria’s regulator delayed anti-gas flaring rules — Premium Times Nigeria
In Nigeria, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) delayed by nearly two years the signing of rules needed to implement a law aimed at reducing gas flaring. According to an investigation by Premium Times Nigeria, this complicated compliance with requirements to reduce methane emissions in the country’s oil and gas industry.
The Petroleum Industry Act, which came into force in August 2021, required natural gas producers to submit plans for the elimination and commercialization of flared gas by August 2022. However, the NUPRC signed rules on gas flaring, gas venting and methane emissions only in May 2023, and they were published in the official gazette in July of that year. The rules gave companies an additional six months to submit their plans.
Permits issued after four years
The law also authorized the NUPRC to take, free of charge, gas intended for flaring at flare sites and transfer it to investors for the production of electricity, liquefied petroleum gas, compressed natural gas and fertilizers. At the same time, according to the publication, the commission issued the first permits to use flared gas to 28 companies only in December 2025 — more than four years after the law came into force.
The regulator did not provide the publication with data on the flare sites allocated to these companies or on the volumes of gas that had been captured and commercialized by June 30, 2026. On September 8, the NUPRC said it would revoke permits from investors that failed to demonstrate substantial progress in using such sites.
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Gaps in methane reporting
The 2023 rules require the NUPRC to publish an annual report by June 30 with separate data on gas flared and vented into the atmosphere. The commission’s reports for 2023 and 2024 contained information on flaring, but not on the direct release of natural gas into the atmosphere. As of August 27, 2026, the regulator had also not published its report for 2025.
In April 2026, the NUPRC acknowledged problems with operators’ technical capabilities and with emissions measurement, reporting and verification systems. The commission required companies to switch to standardized reporting: from the third quarter of 2026, using the IPCC Tier 2 methodology, and from January 2027, to the more accurate measurement-based Tier 3 methodology.
According to the NUPRC’s 2024 operational report, 700.75 billion naira in gas-flaring penalties were remitted in 2021–2024, while liabilities related to such flaring exceeded $936 million. In February 2026, President Bola Tinubu ordered that such penalties be directed to Nigeria’s Federation Account.
