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Nigeria oil reform would worsen bad situation -Shell

Reuters UK

Tue Feb 23, 2010 10:11am GMT

* Bill could drive $50 billion in investment elsewhere

* Angolan offshore output to double Nigeria’s

ABUJA, Feb 23 (Reuters) – Nigeria’s proposed oil industry reforms could drive away $50 billion in investment if passed in their current form and make a bad situation for the sector even worse, Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) said on Tuesday.

Oil majors say the terms proposed in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) will make it hard for them to develop new resources in deep offshore waters as well as to run current operations.

“The PIB threatens to make a bad situation worse … If passed in its current form it will take years to correct its mistakes,” Shell’s Executive Vice President for sub-Saharan Africa, Ann Pickard, told an industry conference in Abuja.

She said she expected Nigerian offshore oil production to increase to about 1.5 million barrels per day by 2015, but that by 2020, Angola’s offshore oil production would more than double that of Nigeria.

The countries rival each other as Africa’s top oil producer.

(For more Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: af.reuters.com/ ) (Reporting by Joe Brock and Nick Tattersall; Editing by Matthew Tostevin)

� Thomson Reuters 2010 All rights reserved.

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