Government targets June for passage of PIGB

The Federal Government expects the National Assembly to pass the harmonised version of the Petroleum Industry Governance Bill (PIGB) before the end of June this year, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu has said.
 
At a roundtable on understanding petroleum reforms proposed by the PIGB by Media Initiative on Transparency on Extractive Industries (MITEI) and Nigeria Natural Resources Charter (NNRC), the minister who was represented by his Senior Technical Assistant, Adeniji Adegbite, explained that the aim of the new bill is to provide clarity between policy formulation and regulation issues.
 
He said: “With the work that has been done so far, we are targeting June as the date we think the PIGB can become law before legislative activities of the current National Assembly ends. The aim is to ensure that both the policy and regulation duties are clearly spelt out because we need institutions to implement both the petroleum and gas policies.”

On his part, Director, Emerald Energy Institute of the University of Port Harcourt, Prof Wumi Iledare explained that the PIGB would create efficient and effective governing institutions, restructure the industry to assure clarity, efficiency and effectiveness.

Also, Nigeria’s crude oil production, including condensate increased from 2.070 million barrels per day (mbpd) it recorded in January to 2.105 mbpd in February.

The Ministry of Petroleum Resources, which made this disclosure in its monthly facts and figures of the Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, stated that gas production also increased from 8.36 billion standard cubic feed per day (bscfd) in January to 8.71bscfd in February.

The report stated that Nigeria’s daily truck out of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) also known as petrol, increased from 49.84 million litres in January to 54.49 million litres in February.

Automated Gas Oil (AGO) also known as diesel, increased from 10.69 million litres to 12.37 million litres.

Meanwhile, private fuel depot operators yesterday blamed the Federal Government for the scarcity and exorbitant price of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) across the country saying government’s inability to make the three refineries operate optimally had led to dependence on imported fuel which they said is unsustainable.

At a meeting of private depot operators and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) in Warri yesterday, representatives of private depot operators tasked the Federal Government to take the issue of revamping the three refineries in the country seriously, stressing that dependence on imported fuel was subject to a lot of hiccups that caused scarcity.