Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, has
dismissed media reports that the new draft Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) sent
to the National Assembly recommended scrapping of the NNPC.
Sylva allayed the fears while fielding questions from
journalists at the National Assembly on Monday after an interactive session
with the leadership of the Assembly.
The minister, however, clarified that the new PIB draft
sought to commercialise and not to scrap the NNPC, NAN reports.
“We’ve heard so much noise about NNPC being scrapped, but
that is not being envisaged by the bill at all.
“NNPC will not be scrapped but commercialised in line with
deregulation moves being made across all the streams in the sector comprising
upstream, downstream and midstream.
“We have said that NNPC will be commercialised.
“But if you are talking about transforming the industry, the
only new thing that we are introducing is the development of the midstream,
that is the pipeline sector.
“So we have provided
robustly for the growth of the midstream sector.
“Through commercialisation, the required competitiveness in
the sector will be achieved,” he said.
Sylva said that the host communities would also have the
best deal from the bill.
According to him, via the PIB, the industry will be
transformed, and the Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF)and the Petroleum
Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) will not exist in the same form that
they exist currently.
“But I do not want to go into the details of the bill until
it is read on the floor of the Senate,” he said.
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