The Petroleum Industry Act is to a large extent not working, partly because of the government’s partial implementation of the Act, and also because a number of the sections of the act are not properly defined in terms of who is going to be responsible in implementing them.
For instance, industry operators are asking questions about who would create the Fund for Gas Infrastructure which is seen as critical to gas infrastructure development, who are those to collect the money and implement the policy?
They also said that there are too many timelines in the Act for a number of issues and implementation may not meet those timelines set by the act.
Industry Analysts are citing the continued payment of subsidy which is alien to the Act as part of the reasons why the implementation of the Act is wobbling currently.
Uche Val Obi SAN, managing Partner at Alliance Law firm, in his contribution stated that the Gas Infrastructure Fund should truly be independent without any interference from any quarter.
The country, he said, needs $3million to bridge the gas infrastructure gap.
Dolapo kukoyi, who chaired the Centre for Petroleum Information ( CPI) Oil & Gas Law Forum titled “Implementing Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021: Fixing arising legal issues” said energy security is not only Nigeria’s problem because every country around the world is looking at its energy security.
Speaking about the implementation of the PIA which took so long before it came to life, she said there are so many issues that are troubling us as a nation at the moment, and it is critical to deal with them in order to push the Nigerian oil and gas forward.
According to her, when the PIA was passed around August last year a lot of Nigerians were happy and saw that as a sign of victory because of the fact it took us so long before it was finally passed.
“While some people were a bit apprehensive because the nation was at the middle of the road, some were canvassing for energy transition, and others were pushing for fossil fuel even when Nigeria was yet to leverage her resources as she should have, even now she still has not done that.”
“We all received it with mixed feelings hoping that we would be witnessing a better oil and gas industry, but a lot has happened since then. We have seen some International oil companies exiting despite PIA, we have seen the intent of the PIA which is around the restructuring of governance institutions in the sector, creating new agencies.”
“We have also seen that the PIA has some incentives for gas, which is being proposed as energy transition and the re-characterisation of the country leases.”
“If we are talking about the implementation of the PIA we need to talk from the perspective of how it can help to incentivize investment in the oil and gas sector,” she said.
She said that Nigeria currently has a very small window to leverage on what she has and it would be better for her to act fast.
Olusola Bello
