Comparative Analysis of Nigeria and Malaysia’s Production Sharing Contract (PSC)

Abstract

The oil and gas industry is governed by policies with the aim of smoothening the business relationship between the Government, the International Oil Companies (IOC’s) and the Host communities. Different oil producing countries have their own laws governing petroleum activities and these laws vary from country to country based on the B-PEST factors which are Biological, Political, Environmental, Social and Technology. However, reserve size and oil type can also influence petroleum laws. Countries like Nigeria relies strongly on petroleum bills such as the PIB in which this research will be analyzing the Production Sharing Contract (PSC) which is a significant subset of the PIB. Comparison between the existing PSC of Malaysia and that of Nigeria was captured in this research and the analysis of the PSC was done based on the Government Take, National Oil Company (NOC) and the Contractor’s benefits. 26.67% and 56.58% recovery cost, 28.67% and 26.28% Government revenue, 23.14% and 7.64% NOC share, 21.52% and 9.50% Contractor share of revenue per barrel was arrived at for Malaysia and Nigeria respectively, showing that the Malaysian PSC model yields more income to the country when compared to that of Nigeria without necessarily short-changing the contractors or the IOCs. Finally, the reasons behind these deficits were highlighted and recommendations made to improve the PSC and benefits for all parties to the contractual agreements.