” The draft seeks the unbundling of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) into five different companies.
The companies are National Oil Company, National Assets Management Corporation, the National Frontier Exploration Services, National Gas Company and the Host Community Fund”.
[WorldStage Newsonline] The Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Wednesday approved the new draft of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).
Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, who briefed State House correspondents at the end of the meeting alongside Minister of Finance alongside the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo Iweala, Minister of Petroleum Dezianni Alison-Madueke and Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Akinwunmi Adeshina said, the council meeting which was a special one focused on the presentation of the PIB.
The bill which has been in the works for close to 15 years is the amalgamation of 16 laws in the oil and gas sector.
The draft bill is expected to be forwarded to the National Assembly in the next few days after some of the observations and inputs made are effected.
The draft seeks the unbundling of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) into five different companies.
The companies are National Oil Company, National Assets Management Corporation, the National Frontier Exploration Services, National Gas Company and the Host Community Fund.
Maku noted that the bill seeks to ensure competitiveness, promote rapid development of the sector.
The new bill he further said proposes revolutionary changes which include the unbundling of NNPC into several companies, the interest of the host communities have been addressed and will make our industry transparent and accountable.
Alison-Madueke who shed more light on the new bill said, “The new bill looks at new areas that were quite critical and first of all they are the Inspectorate, the regulatory agencies for the oil and gas sector to ensure that they are independent and that they can actually do the regulations. We also looked of course at the unbundling of the NNPC which have been very critical, created out of the old NNPC, a National Oil company which will be Independent, it will be a registered company which will have shareholding and it will be ceded acreages and will be also as we faced and implement the PIB, take over current infrastructure in the oil and gas sector; refineries, deports and certain downstream entities as well as production sharing contracts.
“We created an asset management corporation as a holding company which will operate an asset management company that will be a competitive private sector driven company, and it will hold what is today the joint company hydro carbon asset of the nation. We expect of course that as time goes on that the company will operate essentially along the line of private sector with the right profit and loss centres to give the federation the right return on investments in the hydro carbon sector.
“We looked at a couple of new agencies as well; the National Frontier Exploration Services Unit that will reside in the new petroleum policy bureau which will be a technical arm of the Minister’s secretariat. This would be a unique department reporting directly to the Minister. It is expected that it will very robustly drive the seismic data acquisition for our various inland sedimentary basins.
“I will assure you that for the next few years, we will have a continuum in that particular enterprise which I have always said is very critical if we are going to continue indeed to diversify our hydro carbon base in the country. We created a very interesting fiscal regime and frame work which has been of great interest to operators in the oil and gas industry both foreign and indigenous. Suffice to say that we have tried to ensure on balance, that Nigeria will accrue somewhat more revenues in the oil and gas sector as we go forward.
“We have also created a National Gas Company (NGC) within the frame work of the PIB which will absurb the former Nigeria Gas Company (NGC) along with the former infrastructures. This gas company will drive the gas for power and gas for industry that are absolutely critical for our economy as we go forward.
“Existing parastatals such as petroleum trust development fund, petroleum equalization Fund, the Petroleum Training Institute, the National Content Development Management Board will continue to exist until they are no longer necessary.
“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”.
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