Women Energy Practitioners Back Presidential Order on Oil, Gas Development

Peter Uzoho

The Women in Energy Network (WIEN), a foremost gender equity advocacy group in Nigeria, has expressed delight at the Oil and Gas Companies Order 2024 announced recently by President Bola Tinubu.

The Executive Order is primarily intended to catalyse the attraction of investments, reduce project costs, and shorten the contracting cycle in the oil and gas industry with the ultimate goal of increasing the production of hydrocarbon resources, revenue generation, and job creation.

The Executive Order fundamentally relates to tax incentives exemption, remission, and other incentives for the development, production, processing, and consumption of non-associated gas (NAG) in the country.

President of the group, Mrs Eyono Fatayi-Williams, said in a statement that the new presidential executive order comes with the long-required incentives for unlocking oilfield development investments in the nation’s petroleum sector.

The order which also provides fiscal and commercial incentives for investments in the midstream petroleum industry would be the first set of spurs on commercial players in the industry in the past 20 years.

The WIEN boss said with the incentives hosted in the executive order, it was expected that some of Nigeria’s discovered gas fields would now begin to see development and production investments.

“The incentives provided by Mr President will trigger a full chain activity in the petroleum industry, commercialize the nation’s huge natural gas resources, and guarantee supply sufficiency for commercial, industrial, and domestic application of fuel gas in the economy,” Fatayi-Williams said.

She pointed out that the incentives which include 10-year tax credits and allowances have made the executive order one of the strongest propellers of gas-driven industrial catalysts in the economy.

She added that unlocking the development of non-associated gas in Nigeria would assist players in the midstream and downstream petroleum industry to drive home some of the nation’s economic aspirations for the gas industry, including the autogas policy, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) penetration programme, national gas expansion programme and gas-to-power programme.

According to the WIEN President, the Executive Order would not only enable the much-needed investments in the upstream petroleum industry but also enhance ease of doing business by providing fiscally-congenial space for the inflow of investment capital into the nation’s oil and gas sector.

With the investment incentives now thrown at the industry, Fatai-Williams called on all WIEN members to seize advantage of the tax credits and allowances to launch into the field with full female energy to support realisation of the goals of the unfolding reforms in the energy industry.

 Fatayi-Williams pointed out that the incentives would spur full value chain activity in the industry where most members of WIEN have already taken active positions.

She noted that apart from being the most reliable industrial fuel and the cleanest available domestic fuel, natural gas holds enormous potential to restore complete commerciality in the electricity supply industry.