Nigeria’s government has launched
a special fund worth US$100 million to take care of securing the credit
that the oil industry of the country needs. Called a Nigerian Content
Intervention Fund, the vehicle will be managed by the Nigerian Content
Development and Monitoring Board and the Bank of Industry.
Until
now, Nigerian oil service companies could benefit from a 50 percent
interest rebate on loans from commercial banks plus partial security.
These were provided by the Nigeria Content Development Fund, which was
launched in 2012.
The Acting Executive Secretary of the NCDMB said
the new fund was set up in response to difficulties cited by local oil
industry players in obtaining borrowed funds for their operations.
Patrick Obah added that the board and the Bank of Industry were
dedicated to providing assistance to oil services companies that wanted
to create more jobs locally, retain their revenues in-country and add
value to the economy.
Nigeria’s oil sector has been deeply
troubled by falling oil prices, and more recently, by a long string of
attacks on oil production and transport infrastructure. Some of these
attacks, though not targeting people, have ended with human casualties.
The groups taking responsibility for the attacks have stated that their
aim is to redirect a bigger portion of state oil revenues from Lagos to
the impoverished region of the Niger Delta, where the country’s oil
industry is concentrated.
Just the other day, senior government officials from the two southern provinces of Nigeria urged
the central government to revise the oil well ownership regulations in
such a way as to give Niger Delta communities a bigger share of the
profits. “The people of the Niger Delta region should possess at least
65 percent of the oil wells contrary to the present ownership structure
where less than 10 percent of the oil blocks belong to our people,” the
legislators said.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
No comments:
Post a Comment