“For decades, we were told that because of various vested interests, it would be nearly impossible to pass the bill but we made it happen,” Mr Buhari said.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday said the actualisation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021 is the second biggest achievement in the country’s energy sector.
The president disclosed this while declaring the Nigeria International Energy Summit, (NIES) 2023, open at the presidential banquet hall in Abuja on Monday.
Mr Buhari, represented by Boss Mustapha, the secretary to the government of the federation, explained that for decades, Nigerians were told that it would be near impossible to pass the bil because of vested interests,
On 16 August 2021, Mr Buhari signed the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) 2021 into law.
The Petroleum Industry Act provides legal, governance, regulatory and fiscal framework for the Nigerian petroleum industry, the development of host communities, and related matters.
Speaking on Monday, Mr Buhari described the bill as revolutionary.
The president said that when he assumed office in 2015, his administration set out to dismantle the challenges it met on the ground by embarking on major reforms.
According to him, during his administration, the government quickly moved to scrap the existing agencies and replaced them with new regulators, while the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) was immediately transformed into a limited liability.
He added that the new NNPC is on course to becoming the biggest, most capitalised and most profitable company in the whole of Africa.
“Our perspectives have provided the incoming government with the tools to guide Nigerians’ energy future. I enjoin industry stakeholders to give the incoming administration the support and cooperation I received from you,” he said.
He noted that energy will remain the top priority of his administration till his last day in office.
“â…”The first task we combated is the issue of funding and sanitising the oil and gas sector; we then proceeded to exit the federal government from joint registrar cash go-funding. This freed the federal government from the shoes of funding the oil sector.
“The Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) remains our second biggest achievement in the energy sector. For decades, we were told that because of various vested interests, it would be nearly impossible to pass the bill but we made it happen,” Mr Buhari said.
Natural Gas
In the natural gas sector, Mr Buhari announced that he pushed for the diversification of Nigeria’s economy and drove industrialisation through domestic gas utilisation, officially declaring natural gas as Nigeria’s transition fuel.
“We also made giant strides in infrastructure. We kick started the $2.8 billion Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) natural gas pipeline project. The AKK project will transport up to 3,500 million cubic feet (mcf) of gas a day from various gas-gathering projects and help to generate 3.6 gigawatts of power and support gas-based industries along the route when completed. At present, the 614 km gas pipeline is 43 per cent completed.
“We have also reinvigorated the private sector in the industry. We ensured an attractive framework for the indigenous companies to take advantage of divestment by International Oil Companies’ (IOCs) assets.
“This move ensured that the indigenous companies grew their capacity tremendously and they are now accountable for about 30 per cent of national oil and gas production up from just about 2 per cent in 2010.
“We implemented a marginal field bid round and saw to the conclusion of the process which resulted in the award of Petroleum Prospecting Licences (PPLs) to 161 successful firms with the federal government raking in about N200 billion as well as $7 million from the process,” he said.
Meanwhile, in a statement on Monday, Mele Kyari, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) Group Chief Executive Officer said the world today has recognized the need to ensure sustainability in the energy landscape which is in line with the current realities and as key players in the energy sector.
Mr Kyari said the company’s mandate of providing energy for the country remains a priority.
He said in order to achieve that, NNPC is poised to reliably deliver energy to its stakeholders, through efficient utilization of hydrocarbons and other new energy sources which Nigeria is blessed with.
“You will agree with me that sustained energy sufficiency directly enables economic growth and development as can be seen in the history of developed countries. This is why we are focused on efficiently producing energy while minimizing the effect on the environment.
“Oil and gas remain a significant component of energy in the global energy mix therefore we are unlocking more opportunities across both the oil and gas value chain spanning from supply and infrastructure to the markets,” he said.
For instance, he said, the NNPC Limited is actively supporting the federal government towards the realization of key initiatives such as the Decade of Gas and the National Gas Expansion Programme (NGEP) which seeks to deepen natural gas utilization as an alternative transportation fuel, virtual gas supply to off-pipeline grid gas customers and gas utilization as feedstock for the development of gas-based industries.
“This is evident in the definite actions taken to utilize CNG and LNG to power vehicles, buildings and power plants.
“NNPC Limited is also investing heavily in critical gas infrastructure such as the Ajaokuta-Abuja-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline and the OB3 gas interconnector to support 5 Bscf/d of domestic gas utilization including 5 GW of power generation capacity by developing power plant projects along the AKK pipeline corridor and across the country to complement the existing ones,” Mr Kyari said.
For the gas export market, he said the ongoing NLNG Train 7 will expand Nigeria’s LNG production capacity to about 30 million tons per annum (30 MTPA).
“This is in addition to the planned Nigerian Morocco and the Trans Sahara Gas Pipeline projects which will supply gas to sub-regional African countries and subsequently Europe.
“In addition to our existing Upstream activities, we are also deepening exploration activities of the Nation’s frontier Basins using the best industry standards and technologies which are already yielding results such as the Kolmani discovery, and we are hopeful that the recent spud-in of the EBENYI A in Nasarawa State will yield positive result as well.
“NNPC will continue to leverage our partnerships with the Industry, Government, Research Institutions and Academia to ensure energy security and sustainability,” he said.