Nigeria’s parliament may pass the long-delayed Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) in April, the country’s minister of state for petroleum said on Thursday.
“The National Assembly has expressed the intent to pass the PIB bill in April 2021,” said Timipre Sylva, speaking to reporters in the capital Abuja.
The measure, which is 20 years in the making, underpins everything from oil exploration to gas pipelines and fuel regulation and was sent by President Muhammadu Buhari to the senate in September.
The bill would change the structure of state oil company NNPC, amend oil and gas taxes and revenue-sharing and create new regulatory bodies, among other things, to make Nigeria’s oil sector more dynamic and efficient.
The laws governing Nigeria’s oil and gas exploration have not been fully updated since the 1960s because of the contentious nature of any change to oil taxes, the terms of exploration, and revenue-sharing.
– Reuters