By Oluwagbenga
Bankole
Former Petroleum Minister Chief Philip Asiodu has attributed
the challenges in the Nigerians oil and gas industry to the non-passage of the
Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB)
The PIB is an act to establish the legal and regulatory
framework, institutions and regulatory authorities for the Nigerian petroleum
industry, to establish guidelines for the operation of the upstream and
downstream sectors, and for purposes connected with the same.
The consultations and process of preparing the Bill started
as long ago as year 2000. The intention with the PIB is to create with a single
legislation the basis for regulating more efficiently all aspects of the oil
and gas industry in Nigeria.
Speaking at the recently at the 5th annual
lubricant summit in Lagos, Asiodu said that the oil industry in Nigerian is suffering
from the consequences of decisions not taken over the past two decades and more
particularly over the past ten years since the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB)
was first mooted and later introduced to the National Assembly in 2008.
According to him, a Federal Government publication in 2009
states that the bill is meant to
“combine 16 different Nigerian petroleum laws in a single transparent and
coherent document, adding that this is the first time that such a large-scale
consolidation has happened anywhere in the world.
Asiodu who said that the PIB is
meant to ensure improved revenues for Nigeria while at the same time keeping
Nigeria internationally competitive and attractive to investors in upstream and
downstream sectors of the industry, also said that it is a sad fact that many
important decisions have been held up for more than a decade and some major
investments consequently diverted to other countries.
He noted that the country suffered very costly losses of
revenues over the past decades of delays and policy reversals in the management
of our oil and energy resources.
“Some of the critical issues which have remained unresolved
for years due to the passage of the bill
are, underfunding of Joint Ventures of NNPC and IOCs, the Government
persistently failing to meet its CAPEX and OPEX funding obligations, failure to
agree on appropriate pricing for gas, refineries and marketing of petroleum products,
delays in renewal of OMLs, Auctioning of Concessions and appropriate pricing of
petroleum products and petroleum subsidy,” he said.
He therefore lamented that he can
see no rational explanation for not negotiating within the existing contracts
to optimise Nigeria’s revenues up to the targets hoped for using PIB or at
least up to the more favourable terms obtained by later entrants in the deep water
theatre, while waiting for the new PIB to become law.
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