Top news items in major Nigerian media outlets

The following are highlights of leading Nigerian media outlets on Monday.

-- The Federal Government's draft National Oil Policy has proposed to consolidate Nigeria's oil industry regulatory authorities into a single agency to be known as Petroleum Regulatory Commission while scrapping all other regulators, including the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Department of Petroleum Resources and Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, among others.

According to the document released by the Ministry of Petroleum Resources over the weekend, the new regulator will incorporate the activities of the existing petroleum regulatory authorities and also cover some new regulatory activities not currently covered. (Vanguard)

-- Capital importation into Nigeria's oil and gas sector has declined from the 200 million U.S. dollars (90 billion naira) from the second quarter of 2016 to 172 million dollars (78 billion naira) in third quarter, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

But this decline has been attributed to uncertainty in the country's oil and gas sector occasioned by insecurity, delay in the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) and delay in meeting contractual obligations in the service industry. (The Guardian)

-- The Niger Delta Avengers on Sunday told the leaders of the Niger Delta region not to blame the group for renewed attacks on oil facilities in the region despite ongoing peace parley with the Federal Government.

The militant group said they could not help but bring down some oil facilities in the region because the Federal Government had allegedly refused to honour the ceasefire terms they both entered before they heeded the calls of the region's leaders and traditional rulers to use dialogue as a means to ending the crisis in the region. (The Punch) Endit