New petroleum industry law is to attract investors

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, said that the philosophy behind the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) signed into law by the President was to attract investors.

The minister disclosed this while responding to questions on the three per cent allocation to host communities in the PIB in Abuja on Tuesday.

Sylva said that President Muhammadu Buhari would on Thursday speak extensively on the Act which would help to develop the oil and gas sector.

“As a country, we have a direction that we are going to. So, right now, if you talk about three per cent in the Act, for us in the Niger Delta, I will ask, three per cent of something? Is that not better than 100 per cent of what you don’t know?

“What we want to achieve is the philosophy behind this bill which is to attract investors to Nigeria, to produce as much as this crude on the ground as possible. That is what we want to achieve.

“ We must measure everything against this philosophy, so, as a Niger Delta, if activities are not going on, nothing happens because the investors look at the numbers and see if they are adding up for them to operate,’’ he said

Sylva said the percentages were usually charged to operation cost and in Nigeria a lot had been added to the operation cost.

He noted that there was the need to be mindful of hipping up more burdens to the operation cost as its effect would be felt in other areas.

He said that high operational cost would scare away investors in the country.

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