The Federal Government says it will, again, engage Niger Delta oil-producing host communities on the three  per cent operational costs allocated to them in the recently passed Petroleum Industry Bill.

The Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Mr Timipre Sylva, said this on Friday in Abuja, when a group of Ijaw elders, leaders and critical stakeholders visited to congratulate him on the passage of the PIB after 20 years.

Sylva, while tasking host communities on effective management of the funds, decried the situation where communities in the Bonny Island could not access funds paid to them by the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Company.

This, he noted, followed court cases instituted by some individuals.

The minister said he had extracted the commitment of multinational oil firms to relocate their operational headquarters to the Niger Delta region.

He urged elders in the region to continue to sensitise communities to secure public assets in their areas, in the interest of the people.

“We are planning, alongside the Minister of Information and Culture, to hold town hall meetings in the host communities after the presidential assent to the PIB.

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“We need to have more stakeholders’ engagement on the three per cent allocated to  the communities, people need to know that it is from production costs, not from profit,” he said.

He explained that the production cost was always higher than the profits.

“Today, I can tell you that we are on the last mile of the oil economy. Economies around the world are now discussing renewable fuel.

“We must understand that, very soon, we may wake up and find out that oil is not as valuable a commodity as we thought.

“Coal did not finish before the world moved away from it. There are still a lot of coal deposits in Enugu, but if you give some of it to someone, he may not appreciate it because the world has moved away from coal,” he said.

The minister said there was a need to support every effort to ensure that the nation got maximum benefits from its oil.