PIB: NORTH TO GET 30 PER CENT, NIGER DELTA GROUP FUMES

President Muhammadu Buhari signing the Petroleum Industry Bill 2021 into law.

The signing of the controversial Petroleum Industry Bill 2021 into law by the President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday has boosted the increase in the search for crude oil in Northern Nigeria.

By assenting to the bill which has taken about 20 years due to the controversies surrounding it, the President approved at least 30 per cent of the profit to be generated by the proposed Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited to go to the exploration of oil in ‘frontier basins’, according to Section 9 of the PIB.

Section 9(4) of the PIB reads, “The frontier exploration fund shall be 10 per cent of rents on petroleum prospecting licences and 10 per cent on petroleum mining leases; and 30 per cent of NNPC Limited’s profit oil and profit gas as in product sharing, profit sharing and risk service contracts. The fund shall be applied to all basins and undertaken simultaneously.”

Section 9(5) adds, “NNPC Limited shall transfer the 30 per cent of profit oil and profit gas to the frontier exploration fund escrow account dedicated for the development of frontier acreages only.”

The PIB also makes provision for the establishment of a Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission which will be responsible for the technical and commercial regulation of upstream petroleum operations and also promote the exploration of frontier basins in Nigeria

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The frontier basins include Chad Basin, Gongola Basin, Sokoto Basin, Dahomey Basin, Bida Basin, Benue Trough, Anambra Basin, amongst others.

However, the Pan Niger Delta Forum lambasted the President for assenting to the PIB without the amendment of some controversial sections, adding that the move was a way to siphon oil money from Southern Nigeria to the North.

At the moment, crude oil is obtained from eight states in the Niger Delta region which include: Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers States.

The 19 northern state governments had in 2016 intensified the search for oil and gas in the region with the appointment of a British firm to carry out the exploration activities which was sequel to Buhari’s directive to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to increase the tempo of the crude oil find in the North-East.

With Monday’s presidential assent to the PIB, which would regulate all matters in the oil sector, the oil exploration move of the 19 northern governors had received a huge boost.

But PANDEF, led by elder statesman, Chief Edwin Clark, said the President, by signing the PIB into law without the amendment of some clauses, showed that he had no feeling for the people of the Niger Delta who continue to suffer the environmental degradation which has been the consequence of oil exploration in the zone.