PIA is Nigeria’s second biggest energy sector achievement –Buhari

From Abubakar Yunusa Abuja

President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday said the actualisation of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021 is the second biggest achievement in the country’s energy sector.

The president disclosed this while declaring the Nigeria International Energy Summit, (NIES) 2023, open at the presidential banquet hall in Abuja on Monday.

Mr Buhari, represented by Boss Mustapha, the secretary to the government of the federation, explained that for decades, Nigerians were told that it would be near impossible to pass the bil because of vested interests,

On 16 August 2021, Mr Buhari signed the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) 2021 into law.

The Petroleum Industry Act provides legal, governance, regulatory and fiscal framework for the Nigerian petroleum industry, the development of host communities, and related matters.

Speaking on Monday, Mr Buhari described the bill as revolutionary.

The president said that when he assumed office in 2015, his administration set out to dismantle the challenges it met on the ground by embarking on major reforms.

According to him, during his administration, the government quickly moved to scrap the existing agencies and replaced them with new regulators, while the Nigerian

National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) was immediately transformed into a limited liability.

He added that the new NNPC is on course to becoming the biggest, most capitalised and most profitable company in the whole of Africa.

“Our perspectives have provided the incoming government with the tools to guide Nigerians’ energy future. I enjoin industry stakeholders to give the incoming administration the support and cooperation I received from you,” he said.

He noted that energy will remain the top priority of his administration till his last day in office.

“⅔The first task we combated is the issue of funding and sanitising the oil and gas sector; we then proceeded to exit the federal government from joint registrar cash go-funding. This freed the federal government from the shoes of funding the oil sector.

“The Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) remains our second biggest achievement in the energy sector. For decades, we were told that because of various vested interests, it would be nearly impossible to pass the bill but we made it happen,” Mr Buhari said.

In the natural gas sector, Mr Buhari announced that he pushed for the diversification of Nigeria’s economy and drove industrialisation through domestic gas utilisation, officially declaring natural gas as Nigeria’s transition fuel.

“We also made giant strides in infrastructure. We kick started the $2.8 billion Ajaokuta–Kaduna–Kano (AKK) natural gas pipeline project. The AKK project will transport up to 3,500 million cubic feet (mcf) of gas a day from various gas-gathering projects and help to generate 3.6 gigawatts of power and support gas-based industries along the route when completed. At present, the 614 km gas pipeline is 43 per cent completed.

“We have also reinvigorated the private sector in the industry. We ensured an attractive framework for the indigenous companies to take advantage of divestment by International Oil Companies’ (IOCs) assets.

“This move ensured that the indigenous companies grew their capacity tremendously and they are now accountable for about 30 per cent of national oil and gas production up from just about 2 per cent in 2010.

“We implemented a marginal field bid round and saw to the conclusion of the process which resulted in the award of Petroleum Prospecting Licences (PPLs) to 161 successful firms with the federal government raking in about N200 billion as well as $7 million from the process,” he said.

Meanwhile, in a statement on Monday, Mele Kyari, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) Group Chief Executive Officer said the world today has recognized the need to ensure sustainability in the energy landscape which is in line with the current realities and as key players in the energy sector.

Mr Kyari said the company’s mandate of providing energy for the country remains a priority.

He said in order to achieve that, NNPC is poised to reliably deliver energy to its stakeholders, through efficient utilization of hydrocarbons and other new energy sources which Nigeria is blessed with.

“You will agree with me that sustained energy sufficiency directly enables economic growth and development as can be seen in the history of developed countries. This is why we are focused on efficiently producing energy while minimizing the effect on the environment.

“Oil and gas remain a significant component of energy in the global energy mix therefore we are unlocking more opportunities across both the oil and gas value chain spanning from supply and infrastructure to the markets,” he said.

For instance, he said, the NNPC Limited is actively supporting the federal government towards the realization of key initiatives such as the Decade of Gas and the National Gas Expansion Programme (NGEP) which seeks to deepen natural gas utilization as an alternative transportation fuel, virtual gas supply to off-pipeline grid gas customers and gas utilization as feedstock for the development of gasbased industries.

“This is evident in the definite actions taken to utilize CNG and LNG to power vehicles, buildings and power plants.

NBS: NRC generated N5.6bn in 2022 — down by 7.7% in one year

The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) says it generated N5.57 billion from passengers, cargoes and other services in 2022.

This figure represents a decrease of 7.69 percent to N464.74 million when compared to the revenue (N6.03 billion) generated in 2021.

The NRC data is contained in a report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on rail transportation for the third and fourth quarter (Q3 and Q4) of last year.

According to the report, the corporation generated N4.54 billion from passengers in 2022 against N5.69 billion in 2021.

In the year under review, goods and cargo led to a revenue of N416.85 million relative to the N299.80 million in 2021; while income from other receipts stood at N607.80 million — N569.38 million higher than the N38.42 million recorded in 2021.

NBS also said the corporation raked in N715.09 million in Q3, 2022.

This indicates a decrease of N764.91 million (51.68 percent), compared to the revenue of N1.48 billion earned in the second quarter (Q2).

It also represents a decline of 60.52 percent compared to the N1.81 billion received in Q3, 2021.

The NRC, according to the data bureau, experienced a drop in the number of passengers to 500,348 in Q3 last year.

Speaking on the components of the quarter result, NBS said N101.84 million was collected in Q3 2022 as revenue from goods and cargo — dropping by 7.04 percent from the N109.56 million received in Q3 2021.

“Also, other receipts grew by 707.31 percent in Q3 2022 from the N14.61 million recorded in Q3 2021,” the report reads.

“This is lower than the 696,841 recorded in Q3 2021, representing a growth rate of -28.20 percent.”

According to the TheCable Index analysis,it further that 33,312 tonnes of goods were transported in Q3 2022, compared to 51,726 tonnes reported in Q3 2021.

Meanwhile, NBS said the corporation’s revenue from passengers in Q4 2022, totalled N1.15 billion — dipping by 39.54 percent in Q4 2021, when income stood at N1.91 billion.

On the number of passengers, the bureau said there was an increase of 30.10 percent from 1.03 million travellers recorded in Q4 2021, to 1.34 million persons in Q4 2022.

The office added that revenue from goods in Q4 of 2022 hit N157.23 million, up by 63.56 percent compared to the N96.13 million reported in the same quarter the previous year.

However, the volume of goods transported decreased by 1.50 percent in the quarter under review, the report shows.

“Other income receipts stood at N382.17 million, an increase of 3,316.18 percent from the N11.19 million recorded in Q4 2021,” NBS said.

“However, on an annual basis, the number of passengers increased by 18.36 percent.”

In recent times, Nigeria’s rail transport system has experience some challenges that may have contributed to the negative result in Q3 and Q4 of 2022.

After the Abuja-Kaduna train attack in March 2022, the federal government suspended operations on the route for weeks to recover the victims that were kidnapped by unknown gunmen.

The train service was scheduled to resume on Monday, May 23, 2022, but the families of the kidnapped passengers kicked against the resumption.

However, train operations commenced on the route in December 2022 — nine months after the attack.

In August last year, the NRC reduced the number of trips on the Lagos-Ibadan route due to a hike in the price of diesel.

The corporation also introduced new fares for the Lagos-Ibadan and LagosAbeokuta train services.

“NNPC Limited is also investing heavily in critical gas infrastructure such as the Ajaokuta-Abuja-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline and the OB3 gas interconnector to support 5 Bscf/d of domestic gas utilization including 5 GW of power generation capacity by developing power plant projects along the AKK pipeline corridor and across the country to complement the existing ones,” Mr Kyari said.

For the gas export market, he said the ongoing NLNG Train 7 will expand Nigeria’s LNG production capacity to about 30 million tons per annum (30 MTPA).

“This is in addition to the planned Nigerian Morocco and the Trans Sahara Gas Pipeline projects which will supply gas to sub-regional African countries and subsequently Europe.

“In addition to our existing Upstream activities, we are also deepening exploration activities of the Nation’s frontier Basins using the best industry standards and technologies which are already yielding results such as the Kolmani discovery, and we are hopeful that the recent spud-in of the EBENYI A in Nasarawa State will yield positive result as well.

“NNPC will continue to leverage our partnerships with the Industry, Government, Research Institutions and Academia to ensure energy security and sustainability,” he said.