Senate to probe seven oil firms over unremitted $21b

SENATE yesterday, mandated three standing committees to investigate seven international oil companies over alleged refusal to remit about $21 billion into Nigerian treasury.
These are the committees on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) and Judiciary and Legal Matters as well as that of Finance.
The decision was reached in a ruling on a motion by Vice Chairman of Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources, Senator Ifeanyi Ubah, drawing attention to alleged refusal by some offshore companies to honour certain provisions of Production Sharing Contracts Act on modalities of sharing additional revenue between Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and oil companies.
Noting that the legislation was supposed to be reviewed after 15 years, Ubah informed his colleagues that the Act was an offshoot of Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract Act Cap D3 LFN 2004 (PSC Act) which became effective on January 1, 1993.
According to him, non-review of PSC Act by Federal Government had occasioned about $21 billion loss over a period of 20 years as confirmed by Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, stressing the need to thoroughly investigate reasons for this failure to review salient provisions of the PSC Act.