An Analysis On The Nigerian Oil And Gas Industry Content Development Act,2010

Nigeria is the first country in Africa to implement local content law.The Nigerian Oil And Gas Industry Content Development Act promulgated by Nigeria is helpful for us to analyze the legislative structure of local content law in other African countries.Nigeria’s local content policy has gone through a long process of change,during which the Nigerian government has tried to match the local content policy with the development needs of the oil and gas industry in various ways to promote economic development and industry expansion in Nigeria.The Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act is based on trial and error and experience.The law also includes several special provisions that create a favorable legal environment for enhancing Nigeria’s local development capacity and attracting foreign capital to the oil and gas market.First,the law ensures that local operators control the oil and gas industry with strict minimum content requirements.Second,to increase access to the oil and gas market for local small and medium sized Nigerian companies on a "priority chose" basis.In addition,the Joint Qualification System(JQS)is used to ensure that operators entering the oil and gas market are qualified to meet the requirements of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act and to monitor the implementation of the Act.In addition,the Nigeria Content Development Fund has provided financial support to small and medium sized companies that lack the capacity to train their employees,and has helped to further improve Nigeria’s infrastructure.Finally,diverse employment rules provide a stable legal guarantee to solve Nigeria’s employment crisis and improve local living standards.However,the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act still has some issues to be resolved.For example,the definition of many proper terms in this law is vague and inconsistent,which leads to confusion among foreign investors when they read the law.The excessively strict conviction standard and punishment rules make the enforcement of this law extremely difficult.The lack of an independent regulatory regime has also caused corruption in the oil and gas industry,which has seriously affected the environment in which the oil and gas market operates.Therefore,this article through the analysis of the composition of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act in the past ten years occurring in the process of implementation of good experience and outstanding problems,combined with the Nigerian government upcoming Nigeria’s Content Development And Implementation Act(draft),the future development of domestic oil and gas industry content policy discussion,and on this basis puts forward corresponding Suggestions.At the same time as one of the six largest investor in Nigeria,Chinese investor need to know the current situation of domestic oil and gas industry in Nigeria local content method and development trend,so that they can make the right investment direction analysis,analyzing the parts of the Nigeria local content legislation for Chinese investors has a certain practical significance.