Key oil and gas bill scales second reading in Senate

A bill seeking the amendment of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act 2010 scaled second reading in the Senate on Tuesday.

The bill which is seeking to boost local content as well as strengthen the nation’s economy was sponsored by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Local Content, Teslim Folarin.

Following the consideration of the bill, the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, referred the document to the Committee for further legislative work and report back at plenary in four weeks.

Folarin, who spoke on the general principles of the bill, noted that it seeks to amend 38 Sections of the extant Act while introducing six new sections.

According to him, the essence of the bill is to bring the provisions of the sections to be amended into congruence with industry best practices.

He also recalled that the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Act which was passed in 2010 sought to among others, address the then abysmally low level of Nigerian content in the oil and gas sector of the economy; create a regulatory mechanism to monitor and enforce compliance by industry players, and to domesticate substantial part of oil and gas exploration and production activities within Nigeria.

He said: “You will recall that before this Act came into force in 2019, over ninety percent of the $20 billion spent yearly in the Nigerian oil and gas industry was repatriated abroad.

“This was because a large chunk of the contracts was executed by foreign companies and in foreign facilities. With only a few indigenous players and facilities participating in the contracting process in the industry, Nigerian content was less than five percent.”

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