The Senate read for the first time on Tuesday a bill seeking to remove from the Petroleum Industry Bill, the National Frontier Exploration Agency that would be responsible for prospecting for hydrocarbons in the northern parts of the country.
Senators had criticised the move to create the National Frontier as a unit in one of the proposed agencies to be created under the PIB, arguing that it should be a separate agency to underscore the importance and seriousness of government in prospecting for crude oil in the northern part of the country.
The bill, which is sponsored by Senator Smart Adeyemi, has as part of its objectives, the promotion of efficient exploration of hydrocarbons in the frontier basins of Nigeria; evaluate all unassigned concessions and undertake activities that will stimulate exploration interest of local and international oil companies towards increasing the country’s oil and gas reserves.
The agency will function to regulate exploration activities in all unassigned frontier acreages in Nigeria held by the directorate; and identify opportunities and increase information about the petroleum resource base within all frontier acreages in a cost effective manner and with demonstrable technical and operational excellence.
It will have a non-executive chairman heading the board, a director-general and service director, who will be appointed by the President.
Adeyemi said the bill would ensure that the proposed agency would work to guarantee many sources of crude oil from different parts of the country.
He also said with oil production in the North, the attendant economic activities would check the high level of poverty in the region.
Adeyemi said, “If oil could be found in Niger and Ghana, it is possible that we can discover oil in the North. We cannot continue to have one region contributing to the national coffers, while others do not.”