By Clara Nwachukwu
Abuja — International Oil Companies, IOCs, operating in Nigeria have raised alarm over the drop in drilling activities in the country, which may affect crude oil reserves addition in the future.

The alarm is coming on the heels of fresh promise by Vice President Namadi Sambo, on Monday, that the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, which has stifled fresh investments in the nation’s oil and gas industry will be passed in into law by the National Assembly by December.

Government has given similar assurances in the past, which came to nothing with regard to passing the bill, in view of all the contentious provisions, mainly fiscal, which it contains.

The Country Chairman of ExxonMobil companies in Nigeria, Mr. Mark Ward, who raised the alarm on possible threats to reserves addition at the opening of the 3rd Deep Offshore West Africa Conference, DOWAC, in Abuja, noted that while average oil discovery in the rest of West Africa has increased, that of Nigeria continued to decrease.

Ward, who spoke on: West Africa Deepwater: Successes, Challenges and Future Prospects in a keynote address to the conference, attributed the development to issues relating to high costs, which he put at over 50 per cent increase, policy instability, lack of active deepwater exploration and a host of others.

He recalled that in the past deep water project lead times in Nigeria were between seven and 10 years, but has now increased to 14 years, due to, “Protracted permitting and approval process, increased investor uncertainty, potential changes to existing fiscals and lack of deep water gas development enablers, and additional local content requirements,”

Passage of PIB

Against this backdrop, the Vice President, promised that the PIB will be passed into law next month, adding that the new law would remove the opaqueness that had often characterised operations in the Nigerian petroleum industry.

Sambo, who was represented by Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, at the DOWAC, organised by the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists, NAPE, said that the bill would create a comparative and competitive fiscal regime that would encourage investment in the sector.

He said the law would not only give additional incentives to oil and gas investments, but cater for various stakeholders’ interest.