Petroleum Industry Bill to be passed before end of 2011– Minister

Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke,has said that the Petroleum Industry Bill will be passed into law before the end of 2011. Alison-Madueke said this in Abuja in an interview with newsmen on Monday.
She expressed optimism on the passage of the “much-delayed” bill.

“We are monitoring the development in a very focused manner, while waiting for the return of the National Assembly from recess. The bill would be moved ahead speedily, hopefully before the end of this year because the sooner we can get it accommodated into the law, the better for us all,” she added.

Alison-Madueke said that the government was working in collaboration with the National Assembly to ensure that the bil was passed. She said the law would represent the most effective Act that “we could possibly get because this is the Act that the oil and gas sector will stand on for years to come”.

“We are moving speedily ahead with the commercial facet of the gas industrialisation that is put in place to ensure that over the next four years, the petrochemical plant can survive on it.” According to her, “the fertiliser plant, the fertiliser blending plant, the methanol plant, the central processing facilities, the LPG distribution plants will all be fully in place and giving Nigerians the dividends in the real economy, particularly in terms of capacity building and job creation.

She promised a full implementation of the Nigerian Content Act which, she said, was already having a “dynamic” impact on the lives of Nigerian operators in the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry.