"Last year, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke delivered a paper on the future of Nigeria’s petroleum industry in the next five years. Below is an extract from the presentation:

… As you are aware, the Government has embarked on reforms within the petroleum sector in order to make the industry attractive to both local and international investors. Some of these reforms include; the National Content Act, the Amnesty Programme and an omnibus legislation called the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).

The PIB currently undergoing legislative processes at the National Assembly establishes the legal and regulatory framework, institutions and regulatory authorities for the Nigerian petroleum industry. It also stipulates guidelines for operations in the upstream and downstream sectors.

The objectives of the PIB are therefore as follows:

•To enhance exploration and exploitation of petroleum resources

•To significantly increase domestic gas supplies especially for power and industry

•To create competitive business environment for the exploitation of oil and gas

•To establish fiscal framework that is flexible, stable and competitively attractive

•To create commercially viable national oil company

•To create strong and effective regulatory institutions

•To promote Nigerian content and

•To promote and protect health safety and environment

The proposed reforms in the PIB can broadly be divided into two; non-fiscal and fiscal reforms. Non-fiscal reforms relate to institutional and policy re-orientation.

Institutional & Policy Reforms

At the heart of the PIB is the separation between policy, regulation and monitoring and commercial operations. Based on this model idea, the PIB seeks to build institutions around these core principles. Under this, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources has responsibility for the evolution of policy in the oil and gas sector. Under the Ministry are the Regulatory Institutions charged with regulation and monitoring and thirdly, the National Oil Company with responsibility for commercial operations.

The building blocks of these institutional and policy reforms are as follows:

• The Unbundling of NNPC as presently constituted through the creation of a National Oil Company that promotes indigenous operational capacity development

• The Creation of an Asset Management Limited Liability Company to manage the JV assets on behalf of the federation

• The excision of Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) from NNPC as a separate partially privatised entity to cater for domestic gas marketing and gas infrastructure development. The intention here is to accelerate national gas infrastructure development for effective gas supply to power and industrial sectors of the economy. This will be realised through private equity participation of up to 49%.

The proposed PIB will change the role of NNPC. Currently all NNPC’s revenues arising from the management of federal government assets flow directly to the Federation Account and its funding for the JVs is then provided by the government. This role will now be taken over by the Asset Management Company which will be capitalized with a two year loan in place of the annual cash calls and would later be expected to be self-financing through the retention of its earnings. All royalty and taxes would however be paid to the government as and when due.

The new National Oil Company will broadly consist of the PSC assets which shall be used to capitalize the National Oil Company, the National Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), the current three domestic refineries (WRPC, KRPC and PHRC) and the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC).

The new National Oil Company will also be partially privatised. It is expected that up to 30% equity shall be divested to provide private participation as done in other NOCs such as Petrobras, Petronas etc. Government expects the partial privatization to provide a culture change to a fully accountable and commercial company.

Along with the unbundling of NNPC, two new regulatory institutions; upstream petroleum and downstream petroleum inspectorates are to be created to promote effective regulation and monitoring in line with operational best practices. These regulatory entities are expected to perform both commercial and technical regulation in the upstream and downstream petroleum sectors respectively.

Nigeria’s quest to grow its reserves will be engendered in the proposed new PIB through a robust acreage management system to be superintended by the Upstream Petroleum Inspectorate. Similarly, the PIB proposes the establishment of a Technical Bureau in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources charged with the responsibility for frontier exploration services.

Over the years, Nigeria has underexploited its bitumen resources. The Frontier Exploration Services will provide necessary coordination and preliminary work for the Upstream Petroleum Inspectorate, which will through its acreage management system offer opportunities for investors. In order to underpin this, the PIB incorporates a fiscal regime for these frontier areas and specifically incorporates bitumen under the upstream fiscal framework.

Additionally, a Petroleum Host Community Fund is proposed in the PIB. The Fund is a mechanism to formally recognize host communities as important stakeholders by assigning oil and gas infrastructure security to the Host Communities and minimizing environmental degradation due to vandalism and crude oil theft. As a freedom to operate tool, it incorporates penalties to host communities in the event of vandalism in their localities. The proposed legislation includes modalities for using regulations to increase flexibility in managing host community issues.

Fiscal Reforms

The PIB represents the largest overhaul of the government petroleum revenue system in the last four decades. This overhaul has four central objectives:To simplify the collection of government revenues,

• To cream off windfall profits in case of high oil prices

• To collect more revenues from large profitable fields in the deep offshore waters, and

• To create Nigerian employment and business opportunities, by encouraging investment in small oil and gas fields.

Simplification of the collection of government revenues is accomplished through extensive revision of allowable deductions for the purposes of tax. Only direct costs wholly and necessarily incurred in petroleum operations are eligible for deductions.

Given the recent upward oil price movements, the PIB introduces price based royalty for crude prices beyond $70/bbl and gas prices beyond $7/mmbtu.

Thirdly all cost based incentives have now been replaced with production based incentives because government revenues are impacted by oil production and efficient cost management. This therefore imposes strict discipline on cost escalations and de-incentivizes gold plating. The proposed new fiscal regime also seeks to harmonize oil and gas fiscal systems. Gas fiscal terms are fully integrated into oil fiscal systems for the first time in Nigeria.

In line with our National Content objectives and the provision of employment opportunities for Nigerians, there is a distinct preference for Nigerian goods and services through a cap on deductions on foreign based capital expenditure, thus creating incentives for domestication of capital spending.

Of course, with fiscal changes there may be concerns by investors as to project profitability and long term sustainability of production in Nigeria. From our models of profitability, the proposed fiscal terms in the case of onshore/offshore JV projects delivers comparable value to investors to the current system, but additionally improves the economics of small fields significantly through generous production allowances and smaller royalty rates.

With respect to the deep offshore production sharing contracts (PSCs) the 1993 fiscal terms were designed for oil prices of $20 per barrel and below. Section 16 of the Deep Offshore Act prescribes that changes be made to this fiscal regime to restore benefits to the government commensurate with the increased oil prices once oil prices have exceeded $20 per barrel in real terms or 15 years after the commencement of the PSC (2008).

I wish to state that Nigeria is not alone in “tightening” of fiscal terms during successive bid rounds or ad-hoc awards. The goal has always been to achieve a fair balance between government and contractor share. This is to ensure that Nigeria remains competitive when compared to other countries with similar petroleum resource base.

Nigeria remains one of the most attractive countries in terms of fiscal regimes (Government Take). As an indicator of competitiveness, the latest Angola rounds shows Government Take (GT) at the level of Nigeria’s 2005 PSC terms which is less favorable to contractors than the current terms proposed in PIB 2012. Interestingly, these terms will also apply to the National Oil Company as it is not intended to be discriminatory.

Conclusion

Based on the foregoing, Nigeria’s strategy is therefore to address the challenges highlighted above and transform the oil & gas industry in line with the proposed PIB. This will ensure the realisation of the national objectives of four million barrels per day oil production and 40 billion barrels crude oil reserves by in the next seven years".

Extract from: “Nigeria’s Oil & Gas Strategy in the Next Five Years”

By Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke Minister of Petroleum Resource, at the Nigerian Oil & Gas Conference (NOG13)

Source - http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/01/nigerias-petroleum-future-post-pib/

The selfishness of the Northern elites is why they have stalled the passage of this great bill that would have greatly helped the economy- http://tribune.com.ng/news2013/index.php/en/component/k2/item/1395-north-moves-against-pib-as-senate-suspends-deliberations

Nightshift: BlackBerry just made over $4 billion loss . Can such a company with less than 5% market share of smartphones sales in developed economies survive its misfortune?

They can, in software. Hence the shift to BBM and other enterprise software offerings, to offset low hardware sales.

Why is the APC so afraid of National Conference? And they call themselves Progressives!

Yes, the North being afraid of it is understandable. They've always been afraid of being on their own and being responsible for their development.

Unless APC = North, which makes sense.

The Yorubas do themselves a disfavour with this APC/ex-PDP North alliance.

Op, tell us how far na?

Obiagelli: LIES LIES LIES.
It will take a determined and patriotic leader nothing more than a month to reduce oil theft by 80%. My 2cents.

Please post a link where saro wiwa spoke about oil theft.

How exactly will this "determined and patriotic leader" achieve in "nothing more than a month to reduce oil theft by 80%"?

Abagworo: Anyone that wants to know the truth should just travel down to Port-Harcourt and work as a shipsman for one week. The Government, armed forces and politicians are highly involved and it is no hidden news in both Rivers and Bayelsa States.

But isn't that what the op is saying? That JTF personnel get up to 300k per trip?

Fulaman198:

We are not talking about religious sects. Jehovah's witnesses are Christians

They are a religious group, separate from others like Islam is, and usually treated separately- http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/

And on discrimination, they have it worse than Muslims.

Muslims, what's with the drama?

Jehovah's Witness are no doubt the most discriminated religion - and they are among the most non-violent group.

You get as much as you give, and in most cases you get less than you give. Stop the self-pity already. Non-Muslims are far more discriminated against in predominantly Muslim lands than Muslims in non-Muslim lands.

super_sun: I feel very sad each time Islam is coined a 'Religion of Violence'. When in fact it preaches peace. Sometimes I feel the violence is brought forward by poverty which paves way for 'Brain washing' and an eventual radicalism. May the souls of the departed rest in peace.

The violence is not due to poverty. Osama, White Widow, Mutalab, etc did not go into mass murder because of poverty - it's the radical religious ideology.

UK Bobo:
...
Having converted to Islam as a young woman and married a man who went on to be a 7/7 London suicide bomber, she has become a key figure in the terror group behind this weekend’s attack.

Lewthwaite has even been involved in training a group of all-female suicide attackers at camps in lawless neighbouring Somalia.
....
Clearly, the White Widow has a taste for blood. It remains to be seen whether she will live long enough to kill again.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2429684/Kenya-attack-How-anti-terror-police-believe-British-woman-29-Nairobi-mall-massacre.html#ixzz2ffsD2E7f

What about this religion turned this woman into this monster? And it's not an isolated incident - same story with Michael Adebowale. Born into a normal family, converts to Islam, then becomes a monster.

Rooted Word:

Congrats, welcome to the club. Hope you are enjoying the new network?

So far, no complaints- voice and data service has been good. Long may this continue.

Finally ported successfully. Seems there was a mistake in the initial request submitted by Etisalat, once they cancelled it and submitted it afresh, porting completed in about 2hours.

Rooted Word: I successfully ported from Glo to Airtel on Friday. The whole process lasted about 3 hours. It is even the sim am using to send this reply.
Just be patient, I believe it may be from their system.

3 hours? That's nice. I hope the the delays in mine is just an exception. Will wait patiently. Thanks

Seems some GSM operators are frustrating customers trying to port their numbers to rival networks. I've been trying unsuccessfully to port from MTN to Etisalat for over 4days -process should last no more than 2days.

Good thing that NCC is aware and is looking into it.

http://www.punchng.com/business/business-economy/ncc-probes-gsm-operators-for-frustrating-porting-process/

Have you successfully ported your number to another network? Was it smooth? How long did it take?

So this is a case of rape (of a 17year old girl) and self defense. Case closed.

spyder880: We are already moving ahead to select the roofing sheet color. This is the high quality Gerard roofing product (Wichtech brand) roofing shingles. This is a sample of how the roof will look like.

Wichtech is good, but ensure u get a good installer. Had a not so good experince with installation.

The SW may eventually may back GEJ, once the candidates all come out. A lot of SWerners already know the Northern agenda. They have also suffered at the hand of North-backed BH. Yet Tinubu urges them on. Come elections, many will use their head instead of just following Tinubu. Who knows, Tinubu might even switch again.

D sage:

GEJ credible? Well, it depend on your own definition of 'credible leader', but to me, I doubt if there're credible leaders or politicians in PDP.

Fashola, Oshiomole, Rochas or even Aregbeshola would've done better than GEJ. Though they might not be absolutely good but these leaders are honestly hungry for change/development.

Akpabio, who is in PDP probably bests them all. The parties are all useless- it's all about the individual.

The chairman was wrong to jump traffic. But soldiers should stop this frog jump thing - it's wrong.

The Chairman was taking a risk jumping traffic. In a volatile environment like Borno where suicide bombing is common, u can't blame the soldiers for being jittery. Very easy to get shot by soldiers under such circumstances. The Chairman should go and sin no more.

johndwayy: what exactly is the federal government doing about this threat?

What can the FG do? Ban travel to the Middle East?

According to WHO "We do not know where the virus hides in nature. We do not know how people are getting infected. Until we answer these questions, we are empty-handed when it comes to prevention".

Seems there's nothing much the FG can do till more information is available about the virus.

DerideGull: Most Christians are imbecilic noise makers. Christians in Kaduna State should have unleashed measured attacks on Muslims if the idiotic Sheikh Muhammadu Gumi has, in fact, negative comments on the personality of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Why attack Muslims because some people chose to insult Jesus Christ or even God? It's not the Christian way - real Christians attack no one for insulting Jesus Christ or even God. God can and will sort things out himself.

One just hopes there won't be retaliation against Yorubas by the other regions. This looks like a bad move and poor judgement by LASG.

winzy: At a village in nkwo nike,Enugu, the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the grotto cried out blood after a child that She always appear to went to her and asked for proof that it is real(Her apparations),the boy fainted after. He saw that....its true oo, pictures of the weeping Mother coming soon

"A wicked and adulterous generation looks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah." Jesus then left them and went away." -- Matthew 16:4.

What's with this idolatory?

Psalm 135:15-18: "The idols of the nations are silver and gold,made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear,nor is there breath in their mouths. Those who make them will be like them, and so will all who trust in them. "

Sound like positive news. Mods, please move to front page for visibility so people can report their experiences.

JaaizTech:
Check out islamqa.com, just Google underage marriage including islamqa as keyword. you will find your answers there, if you truly you are seeking an answer.
Islam permits early marriage and in fact encourages early marriage, By marriage I mean marriage soon after puberty, also Islam considers the physical and general well-being of the girl before marriage can be consummated. These are the Islamic point of view, they apply to Muslims and Muslims only, you may not like it, but we are satisfied with the guidance ofAllah. Islam did not bring early marriage, early marriage was the common practice either at the time of the prophet or before his time, Islam has only come to encourage early marriage as a means of preventing the girl child from falling into the evil of fornication. The same applies to a boy, Men are advised to marry as soon as they have their means to and have attained the age of puberty.

I've looked it up on islamqa.com as you advised and it appears you may be in the wrong in your assumption about Islam permitting early marriaiage only after Puberty - "By marriage I mean marriage soon after puberty".

See this link --> http://www.islamqa.com/en/178318 . Some excerpts below:

"It is permissible for a man to arrange a marriage for his young son even if he has not reached puberty; it is also permissible for him to arrange a marriage for his young daughter even if she had not reached the age of puberty. It was narrated that there was consensus on this point, but that is provided that compatibility is taken into account and that a clear and real interest is served by this marriage.

Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr (may Allah have mercy on him) said:

The scholars are unanimously agreed that the father may arrange a marriage for his young daughter without consulting her. The Messenger of Allah (blessings and peace of Allah be upon him) married ‘Aa’ishah when she was six years old."

Different view are expressed, but generally Child Marriage (including marriage of minors below 9 years) is permitted in Islam.

Another link --> http://www.islamqa.com/en/12708 , excerpt:

"Marriage to a young girl before she reaches puberty is permissible according to sharee’ah, and it was narrated that there was scholarly consensus on this point.

1 – Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning):

“And those of your women as have passed the age of monthly courses, for them the ‘Iddah (prescribed period), if you have doubt (about their periods), is three months; and for those who have no courses [(i.e. they are still immature) their ‘Iddah (prescribed period) is three months likewise”

[al-Talaaq 65:4]

In this verse we see that Allaah states that for those who do not menstruate – because they are young and have not yet reached the age of puberty – the ‘iddah in the case of divorce is three months. This clearly indicates that it is permissible for a young girl who has not started her periods to marry. "

ibehenry@rocket:
9ja I hail o! At the rate at which technolgy is advancing, in 5 to 10 years time u can kiss ur oil goodbye. We can then have oil pubs where we can go drink d oil. FG act fast o! Time no dey

The oil finishing will be a good thing for Nigeria. Then we will all wake up and act responsibly. The parasitic dependency on oil will then stop and we'll start being creative.

With the limited range of 100% electric vehicles and their high prices (including hybrids ), oil is still good for another 30 years at least. Sadly!

How can you miss out the 2014 BMW X4 - the best of them all, IMHO.

kolanpas: am christain my postors are busy raping minors but i condem muslim wanting to marry her if she will to b married.As for islam on marriage, islam did not put any age for marriage,it is only when 3 condition are met b4 she can marry: 1)she must be emotionally ok i.e she must to tell whom she love and whom she does not love which means husband should nt b force on her 2) she must have what u can c in girl to call her lady eg breast fully grown e.t.c 3)she must be interllectual i.e she can different right frm wrong

Seems there's no Islamic/Quranic basis for your 3 conditions. Do these conditions really exist in Islam or you just created them?

Okija_juju: Looks to me like where someone took a piss on a wall..

Lord knows I have created a lot of virgin marys with my piss on walls especially after several glasses of bloody marys..

Top comment bro.