FG targets additional $1.4bn as N’Assembly amends PSC Act

The House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill seeking to amend the deep offshore and inland basin production sharing contract (DOIBPSC) Act.

The bill, which seeks to amend the Act by reviewing the sharing formula to accrue more benefits for the Federal Government, had been passed by the Senate.

The bill was resubmitted by President Muhammadu Buhari, about two weeks ago after the past legislature failed to pass it.

If the amendment gets presidential assent, Nigeria would be earning additional $1.4 billion income annually from International Oil Companies operating in the country.

Section 16 of the Act states: “(1) The provisions of this Act shall be subject to review to ensure that if the price of crude oil at any time exceeds $20 per barrel in real terms, government’s share of the Federation in the additional revenue shall be adjusted under the production sharing contracts to such extent that the production sharing contracts shall be economically beneficial to the government of the Federation.”

Most of the lawmakers, including Mohammed Monguno, from Borno State and Chief Whip of the House, endorsed the review stressing that it was long overdue.

“Section 16 of the Act is very clear, once the price of crude oil is above $20 per barrel, the sharing formula is to be reviewed, but over the years, we have gone into deep slumber, now we have woken up,” Monguno said.

But Isiaka Ibrahim from Ogun, expressed reservations over the review which he warned could scare away investors from the oil sector.

He said: “It is far expensive to explore offshore today, unlike before where it was only Nigeria that has oil in abundance, we have other countries competing with us.

“I don’t know if we are taking into consideration if these companies will not leave Nigeria and whether   we can measure the longterm effect of the review.’’ He wondered.

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) recently said Nigeria lost about $28 billion over a period of 10 years as a result of the failure to review the PSC Act.

It said the review was necessary because oil production from PSCs has surpassed production from joint ventures, and now contributes the largest share to federation revenue.

Nigeria signed the first set of PSCs in 1993, while the DOIBPSC was passed in 199