20100108

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's lower house of parliament could vote as early as Wednesday on controversial legislation that would transform Africa's biggest energy sector, a senior lawmaker said on Friday.

The House of Representatives is expected to begin reviewing a committee-approved Petroleum Industry Bill that aims to rewrite Nigeria's decades-oil relationship with Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon Mobil and other oil companies.

"We have listed the presentation of the report of the joint committees ... for Wednesday," Ita Enang, chairman of the House of Representatives Rules and Business Committee, told reporters.

The Senate is also working on its own bill, which will need to be reconciled with the House's version before sending it to President Umaru Yar'Adua for approval.

The legislation aims to break state oil firm NNPC, long hampered by funding shortfalls, into profit-driven units able to tap international markets. The move could prompt some of the biggest financing deals of their kind ever done in Africa.

Under the version submitted to parliament by the presidency, the government would be allowed to renegotiate old contracts, impose higher costs on oil companies and retake acreage that firms have yet to explore.

But foreign oil companies operating in Nigeria have warned the plans contained in the bill could threaten billions of dollars of investment if they go ahead in their current form.

The main areas of dispute between the government and oil firms include higher royalty payments, industry-wide taxes on profits and revenue sharing.

Industry officials fear the bill, which has been stuck in the planning stage for more than a decade, could soon be brushed aside by political jockeying ahead of 2011 elections.