The furore which greeted the recent deliberation and public hearing of the Petroleum Industry Bill presently before the National Assembly is tumultuous.
The urge with which various stakeholders travelled to the National Assembly to make their inputs to the Petroleum Industry Bill has shown how serious and central the bill is to the nation.
In spite of over S400billion Nigeria has earned as oil revenue since oil was discovered at Oloibiri in 1956 and its status as the sixth biggest oil exporter, it has not translated to commonwealth for Nigeria, now listed among poor countries.
Besides, observers are of the opinion that the castrated nature of laws governing how oil and gas business is done in the country easily give way for operators to do anything at their whims.
Conceived as the brainchild of the Oil and Gas Implementation Committee, the Petroleum Industry Bill is designed to create the National Petroleum Directorate that will now replace the current Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
The legislation aims at restructuring the state-run Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) into a profit-driven national company similar to those in Brazil, Malaysia and Saudi Arabia.
The far-reaching bill, which has been in planning in some form for more than a decade, has been promoted by the presidency as the answer to oil sector problems.
The PIB will take charge of all forms of policy formulation earlier performed by the NNPC, PPPRA and DPR.
The current Department of Petroleum Resources will metamorphose into the Nigerian Petroleum Inspectorate and shall be empowered to function as an independent and effective technical regulator of the upstream and downstream segment of the industry.
Also Petroleum Products Regulatory Authority will replace the current Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, with full power to regulate the commercial arm of the downstream sector.
Besides, the bill will give room for the creation of the National Petroleum Assets Management Agency, which will replace the current National Petroleum Investments Management Services, while the National Frontier Exploration Services will also be created to regulate and stimulate petroleum exploration in the fallowed frontier acreage of the country.
The existing NNPC Joint Ventures will be incorporated into autonomous commercial entities, which means the current Joint Operating Agreement between NNPC and its Joint Venture partners shall form the nucleus of the new shareholder’s agreement.
Company Secretary of the Nigerian National Petroleum CorporationYinka Omoregbe said when passed into law the bill will ensure that eight laws guiding the operations of the oil and gas industry will be reviewed.
These laws include: The Petroleum Act of 1969 and amendment, Petroleum Profit Tax Act and amendments, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Act and PPPRA Act.
Other laws that will fizzle out are: The Oil Pipelines Act, Associated Gas Re-injection Act and Regulations, Petroleum Equalisation Fund Act and Petroleum Technology Development Fund Act and other laws.
Chief Femi Falana, Prof. Pat Utomi and the President of the Trade Union Congress Peter Esele have all supported the bill.
However, events that have greeted the public discourse of the bill in recent time have created fears or suspicion among various stakeholders in the nation’s oil and gas industry.
There was allegation by the multinational oil companies in the country that the 225 page bill will change the status quo and automatically leave them in the lurch in the conduct of their operations in Nigeria.
NNPC’s main joint-ventures with Shell, Chevron, Total, ExxonMobil, and Agip would also be restructured into independent companies with new management when the bill becomes law leaving the companies with much uncertainty on how the new companies will operate, who will manage them, and how profits will be used.
“Some of the provisions in the bill are still open to interpretation. It is very important that we clarify that before it is codified,” Managing Director of Chevron Nigeria Andrew Fawthrop said.
Besides, Mark Ward, the Managing Director of Exxon Mobil Nigeria, said that the Bill, presently implied that all new planned (upstream) projects would be uneconomical, stressing that his company planned to invest $60 billion in Nigeria over several years. Another multinational oil company has recommended more than 200 amendments to the bill, while others have privately spotted dozens of concerns to the NNPC.
There was also allegation by the South-South Legislators that the bill is nothing but continuous enslavement and degradation of the Niger Delta region
The legislators called for the resignation of the Minister of Petroleum Dr. Rilwan Lukman and the Group Managing Director of NNPC Mr. Muhammed Barkindo, alleging that they are enemies of the development of the region.
There was also allegation by oil workers that the original version of the Bill had been substituted by fake ones which are now in circulation.
The chairman of the branch of PENGASSAN, Comrade Isah Ibrahim,who stated that the said fake Bill contained certain lopsided tendencies in the regulation of the industry, said the document shows that it was actually set out to protect some interest and create more openings for their cronies, rather than tend towards effectiveness and efficiency in regulating and monitoring the nation’s interest in the sector,.
“Also, contrary to the original Bill sent to the National Assembly, which made the National Petroleum Inspectorate (NPI) the technical regulator in the oil and gas sector, and made the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) the downstream commercial aspects of all operations in the same sector, another aberration in the twisted version of the PIB is the creation of multiple technical regulatory bodies instead of the globally widely accepted single technical regulatory body.
‘’The body is of the opinion that Nigerians should expect confusion in implementation of the Bill if accepted because, “the twisted version attempts to create NPI to regulate upstream; National Midstream Regulatory Agency (NAMIRA) to regulate Midstream, which is a new concept and PPPRA to regulate downstream,” he said.
Above all, observers are of the opinion that the bill would have a pro-active effects on the industry only when it welcome more inputs from stakeholders and national interest driven.