Nigeria reportedly lost an estimated $235 billion to the delayed passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill(PIB).
This was disclosed by the Deputy President of the Senate (DSP), Ovie Omo-Agege on Wednesday.
The PIB is a piece of legislation designed to improve transparency and efficiency as well as boost investments in the petroleum industry in the country.
While speaking at the TNGPIB Colloquium in Abuja ,Omo-Agege said Nigeria loses an average of $15 billion worth of investments annually as a result of the delay in passing the bill.
He observed that despite the position of the petroleum industry as the mainstay of the Nigerian economy, it has been left over the years to operate under outdated legal, regulatory and institutional structures even while other oil producing nations embarked on robust reforms to attract investments to their countries.
The DSP recalled that the current oil and gas legislations that govern the petroleum sector was adopted over half a century ago in 1969, adding that such obsolete legal regime has resulted in the sector underperforming.
“Production of crude oil has declined, just as the growth in the production of natural gas has plateaued and the country’s natural gas potential; the largest in Africa with unproven reserves estimated at 600 trillion cubic feet, remains underdeveloped.
“The Nigeria petroleum industry is further burdened by a global supply surplus.There is also a constrained demand growth for crude oil, competition from renewable energy and energy transition projects for international capital.
“Added to these is a lack of refining capacity, gas flaring and environmental degradation, sabotage, pipeline vandalism, oil theft, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“On the brighter side, however, is that in spite of the increasing global shift towards cleaner, cheaper and renewable sources of energy, oil and gas is projected to still be relevant in global energy sector in the next three decades.
“What this demands is that nations that have abundance of oil and gas must be in a hurry to make maximum use of these resources,” he said.
Omo-Agege argued that with Nigeria’s estimated crude oil reserves of 37 billion barrels and over 200 trillion cubic feet of proven natural gas reserves, the nation has the potential to build prosperity and crucial infrastructure for the people of the country.
He, however, observed that the capital available globally to the oil and gas industry has been decreasing due to the paradigm shift to renewable energies. According to him, available capital will only go to nations whose petroleum industries are most conducive for investment.
He lamented that due to Nigeria’s failure to bring the regulatory framework up to speed with global standards, attracting the necessary impetus to unlock this potential had become more difficult as prospective investments have moved from Nigeria to other countries where they have reformed their petroleum industries or were in the process of doing it.
