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The Senate, on
Tuesday, received the report of its committees on the protracted
Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), signalling the beginning of the
finalities on the bill. The bill was submitted by Lee Maeba (PDP River
State), committee chairman of Senate committee on upstream who chaired
the three committees that worked on the bill.

The submission of the report is coming just days after interested parties in the bill offered to withdraw and rewrite the bill.

At a session on oil
and gas policy dialogue during the 16th Nigerian Economic Summit
(NES16) in Abuja on last week, various participants agreed on the need
for all parties to work out a common position on the issues in
contention.

Country Chair,
Shell Nigeria, Mutiu Sunmonu, who presided over the session,
acknowledged the challenges the industry is facing as a result of the
delay in the passage of the bill, saying there is need for dialogue to
resolve the issues and salvage the industry.

The managing
director of Platform Petroleum Limited, Austin Avuru, argued that
though the PIB was initiated to bring about a tighter and deeper fiscal
regime, as well as a more flexible lease administration and solution to
the cash call, “the problem might worsen if the proposed law is passed
in its present form.” He described the controversy trailing the passage
of the PIB as a “genuine stalemate”, and called for the immediate
withdrawal of the draft currently pending before the National Assembly,
to allow all parties dialogue and come up with a piece legislation that
would be acceptable to all within six months.

“If we don’t agree
to dialogue, I do not think we will have a PIB that would be acceptable
to the industry. Otherwise, we will end up having a law that would have
to go through litigation or amendment before we start implementing
anything,” he said.

Lingering controversy

The PIB has long been controversial.

First, there was
the allegation that members of the petroleum committees of the National
Assembly benefitted from a sponsored trip to Ghana by some unnamed Oil
Producers Trade Section (OPTS) of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce, with
the motive of hatching a plot to derail the smooth passage of the Bill
by the lawmakers.

Shortly thereafter,
there were reports that two parallel versions of the new bill were in
circulation. These include the original version presented by President
Umaru Yar’Adua in the form of an Executive Bill to the Senate, and the
corrupted version said to have been masterminded by the NNPC hierarchy.

The delay in the
passage of the PIB had been attributed to the disagreements between the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other industry
operators over the contents of the bill.

Deliberation on the final contents of the bill is expected to commence before the end of the year.