NUPRC Under Fire Over Weak Enforcement of Nigeria’s Anti-Flaring Law

 Nearly five years after Nigeria enacted the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) to strengthen controls on gas flaring and methane emissions, regulatory delays and enforcement gaps continue to raise compliance concerns, according to a Premium Times investigation published on October 2, 2026. 

 The investigation examined the implementation of the PIA and subsequent regulations by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), which is responsible for regulating Nigeria’s upstream petroleum sector.

 Under Section 108 of the PIA, natural gas producers were required to submit Flare Elimination and Monetisation Plans (FEMP) within 12 months of the Act taking effect. However, NUPRC’s supporting Gas Flaring, Venting and Methane Emissions Regulations were not signed until May 2023 and gazetted in July 2023, after the statutory deadline had passed. 

 The regulations subsequently introduced a new six-month period for operators to submit their plans, raising questions about the permits awarded to flare-gas investors could be revoked where sufficient progress is not demonstrated.  interaction between the statutory deadline in the PIA and the later regulatory timeline.

 The investigation also reported that NUPRC did not begin issuing permits under the gas flare commercialisation framework until December 2025, more than four years after the PIA came into force. NUPRC has since warned that permits awarded to flare-gas investors could be revoked where sufficient progress is not demonstrated. 

 Another compliance concern relates to methane reporting. The 2023 regulations require operators to maintain methane inventories, conduct leak-detection and repair programmes and submit greenhouse-gas information to the regulator. The investigation found gaps in the availability and publication of venting and methane-emissions data.

 NUPRC itself acknowledged measurement, reporting and verification challenges in an April 2026 directive. The commission directed operators to use standardised reporting templates, apply IPCC Tier 2 methodologies from the third quarter of 2026 and transition to measurement-based Tier 3 systems by January 2027. 

 The investigation further reported instances of operators failing to submit required methane-related reports without publicly documented sanctions. It cited Frontier Oil as acknowledging that it had not submitted fugitive methane-emissions data between 2021 and May 2026 and that it had not received a sanction from NUPRC over the failure.  Premium Times Nigeria

 From a compliance perspective, the findings point to potential weaknesses in regulatory implementation, emissions monitoring, operator reporting, enforcement consistency and transparency.

 The situation is particularly relevant to environmental, social and governance (ESG) risk management because Nigeria’s regulatory framework places specific obligations on upstream operators regarding gas flaring, methane emissions, reporting and remediation.

 NUPRC’s own methane-management guidelines identify the commission as the lead agency responsible for achieving upstream-sector methane-reduction targets and call for the elimination of routine gas flaring and reduction of fugitive methane emissions. 

 The reported findings therefore create potential regulatory and reputational considerations for oil and gas operators, investors, lenders and other counterparties conducting environmental and regulatory due diligence in Nigeria’s upstream petroleum sector.