Experts want PIB to recognise energy transition as public-hearing begins

The Nigerian Senate on Monday opened a two-day public hearing on the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) designed to clarify and codify the regulatory, fiscal and legal frameworks that would govern the management of Nigeria’s hydrocarbon exploration and development.

However, keen watchers of the energy industry say the PIB fails to recognise the energy transition drive across the world, which Nigeria can only ignore at its own peril.

In 10 years, European Union countries, the United Kingdom, Japan and some emerging market economies will start implementing a sales ban on internal combustion engines. But the PIB is mute on this.

Some experts have, however, said recognising gas as independent of oil and establishing the midstream gas infrastructure fund were provisions in the PIB that would grow the gas sector.

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Nigeria has been on a perpetual voyage with the PIB, a law that is meant to comprehensively address most of the challenges facing the country’s oil and gas sector. This key legislation, which is meant to completely overhaul the Nigerian oil industry and provide new fiscal incentives to producers, has been in the works for more than two decades.

“In view of the energy transition and gas being the ideal transition fuel, a lot more can be done,” Oga Adejo-Ogiri, principal consultant at Vappax Advisory, an energy consulting and business development firm, told BusinessDay on phone.

“For instance, the kind of generous fiscals granted the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) via the NLNG Act which led to the significant growth of NLNG in Nigeria and at a time was recognised as the fastest-growing LNG company in the world,” said Adejo-Ogiri, who is also attending the public hearing.

The PIB has lingered in the National Assembly for nearly 20 years with previous assemblies failing to pass the critical legislation. But Senate President Ahmad Lawan has assured that the PIB will be passed in the first quarter of this year.

Lawan warned that all stakeholders must play their roles to make it a reality. The lack of passage of the PIB has been linked to inadequate consultation of necessary stakeholders in the past.