The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari, finally signed the Petroleum Industry Bill (“PIB”) 2021 (now Petroleum Industry Act, “PIA”, the “Act”) into law on August 16, 2021, well over a decade after the first draft of the Bill was presented to the National Assembly. Although the PIA did not specify a commencement date, the President inaugurated a Steering Committee for the Implementation of the Act with a 12 months deadline in which to come up with the implementation framework, which suggests that the Act may likely become effective around August 2022 or soon thereafter.

Earlier in July, when the PIB was passed by both houses of the National Assembly, we began a review of Chapter One of the Bill on Governance and Institutions, specifically looking into the Powers of the Minister as well as the Establishment of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (the “Commission”) and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (the “Authority”) . Now that the Bill has been assented to, this article seeks to review Chapter One (Parts I-IV) of the PIA in order to identify any significant changes that may have been made to the Bill before it was passed into law, particularly as it relates to aspects of this Chapter that raised concerns amongst stakeholders….