The Federal Government has reassured the international oil companies (IOCs) in Nigeria that there will be reasonable returns on their investment even with the ongoing reforms in the sector. The minister of petroleum resources, Rilwan Lukman, gave the commitment in an interview in Vienna after the 153rd extra-ordinary meeting of the OPEC conference.
He said there was no truth in the reported plans by the major exploration and production companies to discontinue investment in the country for the next five years if the petroleum industry bill was implemented in its present form.
“I don’t believe it. Right now as we are talking, new entrants are coming and trying to get into the industry.
“If what you are saying is true, people would be running away and people are not running away.
“We want to make sure that we keep the people we have in the industry and attract even new entrants with the passage of the bill into law and we can’t do that at the expense of the country’s longer term interest,” Lukman said.
According to the minister, it is a question of balance to ensuring that the country is happy and that the people, who are working with us, whether foreign or indigenous, are also happy.
“There must be a middle way of achieving this,” he said.
Lukman said that the petroleum reform bill was receiving due attention at the National Assembly.
“We are happy with the way the National Assembly has responded so far.
We have been talking and interacting with them and they understand the importance of this particular bill.
“It is not an ordinary bill. It is something that concerns the national economy as a whole and our major national industry (oil and gas). We are reforming it from what it used to be.
“We are trying to put it in a much better footing from what it was before,” Lukman said.
He added that the reform would make operations more transparent and accountable as well as change the thinking of the national oil company
(NNPC) and make it more commercially oriented to deliver on what it was supposed to do.
Jun12009