Petroleum Industry Bill to be passed by year-end
Nigeria still aims to pass a bill this year that will overhaul its energy industry, but the timing of its next oil licensing round is uncertain, a senior government official said on Thursday.
The Petroleum Industry Bill will re-write Nigeria’s decades-old relationship with its foreign oil partners, altering everything from the fiscal framework for offshore oil projects to the involvement of indigenous firms in the sector.
“The Petroleum Industry Bill, I assure you, will be passed, signed into law, before the end of this year,” Lee Maeba, chairman of Nigeria’s Senate Committee on Petroleum, told an Africa oil conference in Cape Town.
The government has repeatedly said passage of the bill is imminent, but revisions and debate have stalled the process. Oil executives have said billions of dollars of potential investment are on hold due to the uncertainty.
“The bill is on the table, the next thing is to consider it clause by clause, and then it’s passed. We don’t see any major problems,” he said.
Maeba said, however, that a decision on the timing of future oil licensing rounds was uncertain, pending the outcome of an audit of previous auctions.
Nigerian Oil Minister Deziani Allison-Madueke said last month a planned licensing round of marginal oil blocks would take place this year.[ID:nLDE69D0TZ]
“We are in the process of reviewing what we have achieved in previous bid rounds to decide whether we will hold another one or not. It depends on the review,” Maeba said.
He said the government had no specific date for when it expected to complete the audit.
Some 120 blocks were given out in previous rounds between 2005-2007 and Maeba said the major targets of the bid rounds — to raise revenue, increase daily production and increase local participation — had not materialised.
He also said companies who had not complied with their contractual obligations would have their licenses revoked and would be banned from participating in future auctions.
“The government is no longer taking this as a joke,” he said.
Reuters
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