FG reduces oil licensing time to 72hrs

The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has said it has reduced the turn-around time for licensing and license renewal for all categories of service providers in the industry from an average of three weeks per application to a record 72 hours.

Speaking in Lagos at the 2019 Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) conference, Ahmad Shakur, the acting director of the agency, said the launch of robust automation processes has positively impacted its regulatory oversight of the nation’s oil and gas sector.

He said with the oil and gas industry service permit system (OGISP), a technology platform, the regulatory agency has been able to reduce the turn-around time for licensing and license renewal for all categories of service providers in the industry from an average of three weeks per application to a record 72 hours.

He said the oil regulatory agency is currently redefining the regulatory framework to lean towards regulation that will encourage mass technology deployment by the industry and set the stage to unlock value that our potential presents.

“In this regard, we are in deep exploration, which has the potential to accelerate our gas reserves growth. In addition to marginal fields development, third party field development framework, focus on petrochemicals development, pipeline open access, and third-party export terminal development”.

Speaking on the conference theme, ‘Artificial Intelligence, big data, and mobile technology:cChanging the future of energy Industry’, Shakur stated that currently DPR is developing a National Petroleum Innovation System for R&D value proposition regulatory framework.

This is to champion genuine collaboration between industry, academia, technology vendors, venture capitalists, and other sister agencies with a view to promoting public and private spending on R&D and foster shared framework for commercialization of high potential ideas.

“DPR is reiterating its commitment to collaborative efforts with professional associations and bodies to share knowledge, ideas and perspectives with a view to enhancing the competitiveness of the Nigerian Oil and Gas industry through dynamic regulation, technology adoption and deployment, growing indigenous national petroleum innovation system.”