EMEA News
Nigerian Official: Energy Bill Too Complex to Pass
Nigeria's Minister of Petroleum Diezani Alison-Madueke says a bill that seeks to provide a framework for investment in the nation's energy sector may be too complex for the National Assembly to pass, Nigerian newspaper Business Day reports.
"The law is not in my purview, it is with the National Assembly, so I cannot proffer or implement certain solutions right now, but it might have been better to break it into a manageable state to allow it move forward," Alison-Madueke said at the World Economic Forum (WEF) Africa on Friday.
The Petroleum Industry Bill, which has been stuck in the Assembly for more than three years, is seen as a tool to grow the Nigerian oil sector, where at least $28 billion in investment has been lost or deferred since 2010.
The bill includes the transformation of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) into a national oil company like Brazil's Petrobras, as well as a 74 percent tax on offshore oil production.
Multi-national energy companies have decried the fiscal terms of the bill as uneconomic.
The nation's N11.55 trillion ($71.6 billion) oil sector contributes 14.4 percent to the nation's gross domestic product, down from a high of 32 percent, and represents 75 percent of government revenue and 95 percent of exports.
Nigerian legalised bunkering earlier this year with no special levies in an effort to discourage illegal bunkering and increase oil revenues.
