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AfrOil POLICY AfrOil

Nigerian legislator hints at

slightly longer timeline for PIB

NIGERIA THE speaker of the House of Representatives,
the lower house of Nigeria’s National Assembly,
has hinted that the timeline for securing passage
of the country’s new oil and gas law may extend
beyond the first quarter of 2021.
Femi Gbajabiamila, the leader of Presi-
dent Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressives
Congress (APC) faction, said last week that he
expected the lower house to pass the Petroleum
Industry Bill (PIB) within six months. He also
stressed, though, that legislators would work
to ensure that the final version of the bill was
acceptable to all parties.
“First, the House is determined to pass the
bill within the next six months, or probably less, House speaker Femi Gbajabiamila (Photo: Gbaja.com)
because the clock has already started running
from the time it was presented,” he told a del- Nigeria’s government submitted its draft ver-
egation from the Oil Producers Trade Section sion of the PIB to both chambers of the National
(OPTS) of the Lagos State Chamber of Com- Assembly in August this year.
merce and Industry. “Two, the House is deter- At the time, President Buhari said he hoped
mined to pass a PIB that is satisfactory to all. I to be able to sign the bill into law before the end
know it is difficult to satisfy everybody, but we of December. Subsequently, the House and the
will try our best to satisfy everybody.” Senate both passed it in the first reading on Sep-
Gbajabiamila did not say whether members tember 30 and in the second reading on Octo-
of the lower chamber were contemplating any ber 20. They then suspended discussions of the
specific changes to the PIB. But he did express PIB so that they could focus exclusively on next
some concerns about the current version of the year’s federal budget.
bill, saying: “[The] PIB as it is does not allow Since then, Timipre Sylva, the country’s Min-
Nigeria to compete favourably in the global mar- ister of State for Petroleum Resources, has said
ket. We are not competitive ... We need to look that the government is now aiming to pass the
at [the details of the bill], but I think it will be PIB before the end of March 2021. “I am not say-
difficult to tell members that we should go back ing categorically and conclusively that the PIB
to the old arrangement that we had.” will be passed then. But what I am saying is that
His words echoed sentiments expressed from the pace of work we can see the National
previously by Mike Sangster, the chairman of Assembly working so far, everything being
OPTS. Sangster asserted recently that the PIB equal, we are projecting that the PIB will be
would make Nigeria a less competitive player passed [at the] latest by the first quarter of 2021,”
on the global oil market if it were passed in its Sylva told the Premium Times newspaper earlier
present form. this month. ™

Local content to make up at least

55% of work on NLNG’s Train 7

NIGERIA NIGERIA LNG (NLNG) intends to rely on local Chambers International (JCI) earlier this week,
providers for at least 55% of the work that will be Attah said it made sense to maximise local con-
done on the Train 7 expansion project, accord- tent in the Train 7 scheme, which calls for the
ing to Tony Attah, the managing director and construction of a seventh production train at
CEO of the consortium. NLNG’s natural gas liquefaction plant on Bonny
Speaking at a reception held by the Junior Island.

Week 47 25•November•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P13