NNPC collaborates on passage of PIB

NIGERIAN National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has unveiled its intention to collaborate with the National Assembly (NASS) in order to ensure the quick passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).The Managing Director of National Engineering and Technical Company Limited (NETCO), Lewis Binitie-Cassidy, who represented the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mr. Augustine Oniwon at the just concluded 2011 Lagos international Trade Fair, also disclosed that the NNPC will continue to represent the interest of Nigeria in the oil and gas industry.He said: 'Part of our roadmap to make NNPC competitive in the global market, is to collaborate with NASS to ensure the passage of the PIB, the Bill, when passed into law, is a change legislation, which would offer our corporation all the necessary incentives to enable it excel both at the local and international levels.'Specifically, the Bill, when passed into law, has the capacity to improve business practices in the NNPC to be able to run as a pure business concern, able to raise funds from the capital market and pay dividend to its owners, and at the same time the company will shed its current regulatory role and focus on the business of exploration, refining and marketing of petroleum products, covering the whole value-chain in the oil and gas industry', he added.He stated that the Bill would also make provision for the development of gas for the domestic market through a combination of obligations set by the Department of Petroleum resources (DPR) and favourable fiscal provisions.fStressing that the NNPC outperformed others by a wide margin in the areas of market share, return on investment and profits, and demonstrated a higher ability to anticipate and survive difficult times and reverse decline, the NETCO boss said: 'NNPC will capitalize on the opportunities to be created in the gas sector will the Bill is passed into law to expand its gas marketing businesses domestically and internationally'In his welcome address, the President of the LCCI, Otunba Femi Deru said thatthe trade fair was part of the chamber's contribution to Nigeria's quest of becoming one of the top 20 industrialized economies in the world by year 2020.'LCCI has used the 2011 trade fair to showcase, encourage and support manufacturers, the private sectors in the nation's economy to thrive', he added.
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