Provisions of the new Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) will strip the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) of management of the joint ventures, minister of petroleum resources Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke has said.
She stated this yesterday while listing some of the new provisions in the bill when a delegation of the United States government led by Mr. Michael Froman, a Deputy Assistant to the US president and deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs, paid her a visit in Abuja.
The minister explained that an asset management company would be created to take over the management of the joint ventures from the NNPC which will be unbundled to make way for the establishment of a new company, the National Oil Company, which will be competitive and profit-driven.
‘’The new provisions in the bill include those creating the asset management company which will take over the management of the joint ventures from the NNPC that will be unbundled to make way for the establishment of a new company, the National Oil Company, which will be competitive and profit-driven,’’ she said
Alison-Madueke, who threw more light into the draft PIB that has just been transmitted to the National Assembly and the features that make it different from other fake versions reportedly making the rounds, said the new bill is tamper-proof.
She said besides the watermarks bearing her own handwriting on every page, the draft bill is locked in with a code such that no one can add to or remove anything from it without the code. She explained that she took the pains to secure the document to avoid the type of duplication that led to the emergence of fake versions of the old PIB which created confusion in the National Assembly.
The new PIB, she said, was drafted with equity in mind and the concerns of the international oil companies taken into consideration so as to engender a win-win situation for Nigeria and stakeholders in the industry.
The minister also briefed the US delegates on the worrisome trend of professional and foreign involvement in crude oil theft, adding that, with the establishment of a special task force made up of senior military officers, more arrests are being made and that the president has directed the attorney-general of the federation to ensure diligent prosecution of any oil thief arrested.
She informed that effort was being made to introduce a number of measures such as electronic bill of lading, and DNA tracking of and certification of Nigerian crude oil to make it less attractive for it to be stolen.
On gas development, the minister explained that when the new PIB is passed into law, “it is expected that gas will be the next area of explosion for the country and it will take over from crude oil because Nigeria is actually a gas nation considering the enormous gas reserves we have”.
Speaking on behalf of the delegation, Froman commended the minister for taking the pain to ensure the authentication of the PIB, and urged her to remain open to ongoing dialogue over the bill.