Breaking News: Finally, Senate passes PIGB, unbundles NNPC

The Senate has finally passed the much-awaited Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB).

The bill seeks to remove powers from different regulatory agencies and scraps the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA).

It also approves a single regulator for the petroleum industry operations.

This bill was passed after its clause by clause consideration at Thursday plenary.

PIGB focuses mainly on administration and privatisation of the petroleum industry as it splits the NNPC into three different entities, viz: The Nigeria Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NPRC), National Petroleum Assets Management Company (NPAMC) and Nigeria Petroleum Company (NPC).

While the NPRC will serve as a regulatory entity for the entire petroleum industry (upstream, midstream and downstream), the NPAMC will serve as the counter-part and administrator of production sharing agreements and such other risk-based agreements as the government may decide to conclude, even as it proposes NPC as an integrated oil and gas company.

Formerly known as Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), it was first introduced into the Sixth National Assembly in 2008 as an executive bill by late president, Umaru Yar’Adua. The Sixth National Assembly failed to pass the bill.

The bill was re-introduced into the Seventh National Assembly in 2012 by former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Although the Seventh House of Representatives passed it towards the end of its tenure, it failed to get a concurrent passage from the Senate, thus ending the life of the bill.

Unlike the two unsuccessful attempts, the current proposal in the Eighth Senate is a private member bill sponsored by the Chairman,  Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream Tayo Alasoadura.

Details later….

OWEDE AGBAJILEKE, Abuja