The Nigerian Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has criticised the country’s offshore companies for failing to implement health and safety measures to tackle the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic announced by the department in April.
According to government figures, Nigeria has reported 22,020 positive tests for Covid-19, the 50th-highest in the world, although just 542 people have died from the virus. This has given the country a death rate of just three per million people, a relatively low figure that has perhaps encouraged the country’s oil and gas sector to focus more on expanding operations and enhancing productivity than ensuring safe working conditions. Earlier this month, the country launched its first licensing round for marginal oilfields in 18 years.
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In response, the DPR has been critical of the sector’s overall response to the crisis, although stopped short of naming individual companies for their supposed lack of efforts to curb the pandemic.
Read more about the DPR’s response to the pandemic here.
