Kayteem

• Post By Paul Toyo
• 1 month ago

NMDPRA formerly known as DPR is the regulatory body in Nigeria with the responsibility to issue approvals for LPG plants.
The Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority has offices in almost all the State capitals. If you are to site your plant in any state, the NMDPRA staff in that state have the primary oversight over your approval as they will carry out on site inspections and prepare reports which will be sent to their regional offices or headquarters depending on the level of the approval sought.
Previously, getting approvals involved submitting hard copies of required documents in their offices but since 2020, every aspect has now moved online and become paperless.
The three levels of approval are as follows

1. License to Establish formerly known as Site Suitability Approval which is a cost saving method put in place by NMDPRA for proposed plant owners to ascertain suitability or otherwise of the location of the proposed LPG plant. With this, the individual involved can avoid spending too much money and ending up not getting the approval sought. However, there is a way to avoid wasting your time snd money on a location that wont be approved. It is either you work with experienced NMDPRA consultants or you can ask NMDPRA staff to carry out pre inspection on proposed location. Please note that this is not free.

2. License To Construct which is the next level of approval to apply for if and when you successfully scaled through the first stage. Here, you will need documentation from the Town planning office for the location you have chosen. It will also involve getting documentations from the Nigeria Police as well as State Fire Service. You will also submit drawings of the proposed plant as well among other documentations. Once you submit all required documents, your location will be inspected and reports will be sent to regional office or headquarters which are responsible for the approval. If you get this license to construct, you can start installing the
LPG equipments and put up your desired buildings.

3. The third level of approval is the License To Operate which you obtain by submitting various documents and installing.some required devices in the LPG plant. You are to obtain this license before you start selling gas to the public. But because of special situations, they may be flexible concerning this.

Official payments to be made on the NMDPRA portal for processing of the approvals used to be the same for different sizes of storage but that has changed.

For 0.1MT to 5MT, you pay #100,000
For 5.1MT to 10MT, you pay #200,000
For 10.1MT to 60MT, you pay #300,000

You are expected to pay the above processing fee for each stage of approval or licensing.

Documents you will need for the licensing include the following

1. CAC certificate
2. Memorandum and Articles of association
3. FIRS tax clearance certificate
4. Site layout
5. Survey
6. Standards and codes
7. Approved building plan
8. Police report
9. Fire service report
10. Town planning approval
11. Environmental Impact Assessment

Above is not an exhaustive list as NMDPRA or State authorities may ask for additional documents depending on peculiarities of your application or location.

Thank you for reading. Feel free to ask questions or seek clarifications on the above. I can be reached via (WhatsApp) 08032297157.