Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Maduekehas said the Petroleum Industry Bill will be passed into law before the end of 2011.
Against the background of previous failed promises by government officials, including that from Prwesident Goodluck Jonathan that the bill, which seeks to comrehensively overhaul Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, would be passed by last May, Alison-Madueke xpressed optimism the passage of the bill by year end.
We are monitoring the development in a very focused manner, while waiting for the return of the National Assembly from recess,” said the minister.
“The bill would be moved ahead speedily, hopefully before the end of this year because the sooner we can get it accommodated into the law, the better for us all,” she added.
Alison-Madueke said that the government was working in collaboration with the National Assembly to ensure that the bil was passed.
She said the law would represent the most effective Act that “we could possibly get because this is the Act that the oil and gas sector will stand on for years to come”.
“We are moving speedily ahead with the commercial facet of the gas industrialisation that is put in place to ensure that over the next four years, the petrochemical plant can survive on it.”
