FG issues gas supply licence to Ohuru Trading Limited

Eunice Imo

Lagos — The Federal Government has issued a Wholesale Gas Supply Licence to Ohuru Trading Limited.

The Chief Executive, of Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, NMDPRA, Farouk Ahmed, issued the licence to Ohuru Trading on behalf of the government in Abuja recently.

“Pursuant to the above (PIA), we are pleased to inform you today that the authority is undertaking a significant milestone as stipulated in section 142, which states that the authority may upon approval of an application and payment of prescribed fees, grant and issue a Wholesale Gas Supply Licence to a qualified applicant.

“In line with the above, Ohuru Trading Limited’s application for the Wholesale Gas Supply Licence was approved after due consideration and upon fulfillment of the stipulated requirements.

“The commercial licenses as provided for in the PIA in general and the Wholesale Gas Supply Licence in particular are significant in many respects as they underscore the focus and priority attention placed on commercial activities in the oil and gas space,” Ahmed stated.

He said the company was being presented with a third-party gas supply licence to purchase natural gas directly from any lease or third party.

“This will enable them to sell and deliver wholesale gas to wholesale customers and natural gas distributors at any location in Nigeria.

“We believe that this will encourage prospective applicants to turn in their requests for other commercial licenses introduced by the Act and domiciled with the authority,” the NMDPRA boss stated.

Ahmed said the milestone would reinforce the government’s commitment to attracting Foreign Direct Investments and other forms of capital inflow into the domestic economy, as well as improve the living conditions of Nigerians.

The Chief Commercial Officer, Ohuru Trading Limited, Mariah Lucciano-Gabriel, said the licence would enable the firm to sell gas on a wholesale basis.

“So, what this means for us is that we are able to aggregate quantities of gas, different leases, and different third parties and supply predominantly to the domestic market.”

“This wholesale supply licence gives us the leverage to be able to supply gas to the power sector and the fertilizer industry, we are able to aggregate pockets of stranded gas from different fields and then channel it to areas it is most needed.

“Now, most of the people we have in our portfolio are power companies and we are quite focused on supplying gas to a lot of the power firms to move the nation forward. So, the supply licence legitimizes us to be able to do that,” she stated.

Commenting on the capacity of the firm in gas delivery, Lucciano-Gabriel said the company would not just rely on the Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria but would deal with individual leases.

“In terms of quantity, our licence gives us the remit to trade up to 500 million standard cubic feet of gas per day, and we are not just relying on the gas aggregator, no, we are going to be talking to individual Oil Mining Leases, OMLs.

“But that does not mean we are not going to be able to deal with the gas aggregator as well, we can. But this gives us the right to approach individual Oil Mining Leases and third parties as well,” she stated.

In terms of infrastructure, the CCO stated that “for now we probably will be relying on the Nigeria Gas Company, NGC, pipeline network, but as time goes on and as our supply situation gets more stable, we might begin to put our own pipelines in place.”