Kunle Kalejaye
24 July 2012, Sweetcrude, LAGOS – STAKEHOLDERS in the Nigerian oil and gas industry have urged the National Assembly to expedite action on the passage of the Petroleum Industry bill, PIB, forwarded to the Assembly last week by President Goodluck Jonathan.
Some of the stakeholders who spoke with newsmen in Lagos said the bill was long overdue, adding that its passage will fast-track socio-economic development in the industry.
Mr Afe Mayowa, President of the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists, NAPE, said that approval of the bill by the Federal Executive Council was a welcome development, adding that the council had through the action shown the seriousness of government on the issue.
“When the Executive Council speedily approved the bill, that is an indication that the government is very serious with it; and I want to also appeal to the National Assembly to also treat it with the same urgency that the Federal Executive has done,” he said.
The NAPE president said passage of the bill will save the nation’s oil and gas sector from total collapse.
Alhaji Adebisi Bada, the Financial Sectary, Western Zone of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, said the creation of new companies by the PIB has put the oil and gas industry in the right frame.
He said: “The PIB is what all stakeholders have been clamouring for to sanitise the petroleum industry, and from the news, I gathered that the likes of Petroleum Equalisation Fund, PEF, and the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, have been scrapped, and I think that is good so that fuel will be made available everywhere and it will be sold at landing cost in every state and every location in the country.
“I think it’s good for the country; in Europe this is what is obtainable, what is sold in London, is what is sold in North London. The farther you go from the point of production, the more you pay and it takes care of cost of transportation.”
Mr Emmanuel Iheanacho, the Managing Director of Integrated Oil and Gas Limited, in his view said that “everybody is actually expecting to see the new PIB signed into law, because it’s going to allow for the proper unbundling of the NNPC.”
It would be recalled that the PIB had created six new companies, namely the National Oil Company, Asset Management Corporation, National Frontier Exploration Services, National Gas Company and the Petroleum Host Communities Development Fund.
