By Joshua Williams
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Hon. Timipre Sylva has said the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) will not be scrapped but commercialised if the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) is passed into law.
Sylva, who spoke with newsmen on Monday evening after a closed-door meeting with the leadership of the National Assembly, declared: “I have heard so much noise about NNPC being scrapped, that is not envisaged in the bill at all”.
Rather, he said the “NNPC will be commercialised, if at the end of the day the PIB was passed by the National Assembly and assented to by the President”.
The Minister also hinted that government through the new bill aims to develop the mid stream of the oil sector.
Said he: “If you are talking about transforming the industry, the new thing we are developing is the mid stream. That is the pipeline sector, that sector in the mid stream and the downstream because the framework is not fully developed. So we have provided robustly for the growth of the midstream sector.”
On other details of the PIB, Sylvia hinted that host oil communities “have the best deal and its details you would hear in the next few days”.
He added that the bill will take care of the PEF while the PPPRA will not exist in the form it is today.
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