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FG Approves Petroleum Industry Bill

By on July 12, 2012

In a bid to step up activities in the oil sector, the Federal Government yesterday formally approved the new Petroleum Industry Bill.

Briefing State House Correspondents after the weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke said government had carried out extensive consultations with all involved stakeholders, said the new bill has done everything possible to ensure that stakeholders take ownership of the Bill.

Before the FEC meeting yesterday, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Pius Anyim  announced that the President had given the minsiters one hour to read through the bill preparatory to deliberations.

Allison-Madueke said the new draft Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) has one key objective, which is to unbundle the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) into different companies.

The companies are National Oil Company, National Assest Management Company, the National Frontier Exploration Services, the Host Community Fund and National Content Development Management Board.

The bill which has been in the pipeline for about 15 years is the amalgamation of 16 laws in the oil and gas sector and will be transmitted to the National Assembly in the next few days.

Also speaking, the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku said the council meeting had special focus on the presentation of the PIB.

He said the objectives of the bill include to ensure that it becomes more competitive, to promote rapid development of this sector. The new bill proposes revolutionary changes which includes the unbundling of NNPC into several companies, the interest of the host communities have been addressed and will make the industry transparent and accountable.

The new bill was first put forward in the year 2000 and after a couple of years in the National Assembly, it was returned  to the Executive for fine tuning.

Speaking on the new bill, Dezianni said “The 7th session of the National Assembly agreed that due to the fact that there were various versions of the bill floating around by then, we would go back to the drawing board, look at it again, refine and rework it to get it to the point where we would  be comfortable with it.

“This is just as a new Petroleum Host Community Fund  which again will take care of the participation of the host communities of oil and gas communities in the country has been created in the new Bill.