OIL TERMINAL DUES ACT

(1) As from the date of commencement of this Act, terminal dues may be levied, subject to the provisions of this Act and the Nigerian Ports Authority Act, on any ship evacuating oil at any oil terminal and in respect of any services or facilities provided under this Act.
(2) The following persons shall be liable to pay any terminal dues levied pursuant to subsection (1) of this section, that is-
(a) the master or owner of the ship;
(b) every consignor or agent who shall have paid or made himself liable to pay any dues on account of such ship,
but, when any terminal dues are paid by any person who is not the master or owner of the ship, that person may retain, out of monies in his hands received on account of such ship or her owner, the amount of the dues paid by him together with reasonable expenses incurred by reason of such payment or liability.
(3) The master of any ship arriving in, or applying for the clearance of a ship outwards from an oil terminal shall produce to the Nigerian Ports Authority-
(a) the ship's register and the ship's papers;
(b) a list containing the name of the consignee of the oil intended to be evacuated; and
(c) such other particulars as the Authority may require, including the kind and quantity of oil to be evacuated, and the particulars required in the foregoing provisions of this subsection shall be delivered to such officer of the Authority and on such forms as may be prescribed.
(4) The Authority may either alone or with any other person enter into any ship evacuating oil in order to ascertain the dues payable in respect of the ship and may for that purpose determine the quantity of the oil in respect of which terminal dues are to be paid and may, if necessary, detain such ship until the dues have been ascertained or the quantity of the oil otherwise determined.
(5) Where the quantity of oil determined in accordance with subsection (4) of this section is more than that shown by the particulars delivered in accordance with subsection (3) of this section, the expenses incurred in determining the amount of oil shall be paid to the Authority by the master of the ship, and shall be recoverable in the same manner as dues leviable under this section.
(6) Where the master of any ship in respect of which any terminal dues are payable refuses or neglects to pay such dues on demand, the provisions of sections 75 to 77 of the Nigerian Ports Authority Act (which provide the remedies for the recovery of dues) or such provisions as may be prescribed shall apply in relation to the recovery of terminal dues payable under this section as they apply in relation to the recovery of dues and rates payable under Part XI of that Act.

(1) It shall be the duty of the Authority to provide such navigational services or extend such facilities for the purposes of this Act as may be necessary or expedient to serve the public interest in accordance with the requirements of the provisions of the Convention.
(2) Such navigational services may include the installation of position-fixing system, navigational aids, and the setting up of sea lanes for the purposes of removing any navigational hazards
(3)
In this subsection-
(a) "position-fixing system" means such system of hyperbolic navigation which operates automatically and continuously, and which depends on time signals sent out from a series, that is to say, chains of master and slave stations, for the purpose of enabling any mariner to obtain the position of his ship, and of aiding navigation, with a very high degree of accuracy; and
(b) "navigational aids" include objects on shore or afloat or instruments, such as light-houses, lightships, buoys, beacons, radio/radar and radar equipment, which assist in the safe passage of ships or enable ships to ascertain their positions at sea in relation to these aids.
(4) The facilities which the Authority may provide may include berthing, towing, mooring, or moving of ships in or around any oil terminal for the purposes of evacuating oil from the terminal including the establishment of safety zones, and the Authority may in respect of such services levy ships' dues on such ships.
(5) Sections 7 and 8 of the Nigerian Ports Authority Act (which relate to the duties of the Authority) shall apply, and shall be construed with such modifications as may be necessary, and notwithstanding the generality of the foregoing, the references in those provisions to "navigational services" and "port facilities" are references to the services and facilities prescribed under the foregoing provisions of this section.

Subject to the provisions of this Act, the provisions of the Nigerian Ports Authority Act specified in column 1 of the First Schedule of this Act shall apply in relation to any oil terminal and to the extent mentioned in column 3 of that Schedule as they apply in relation to a port or any approaches thereto, and as if references in that Act to "a port or any approaches thereto" were references to an "oil terminal or any area within which the terminal is situated".

The Authority may for the purposes of this Act appoint or designate any officer, servant or agent of the Authority for the purposes of discharging any of its functions under this Act.

The Minister may by regulations extend any regulations made by the Minister or by the Authority under the Nigerian Ports Authority Act for the maintenance, control and management of anything to which the Act relates, and in particular, apply section 71 of the Nigerian Ports Authority Act (which relates to the power of the authority to make regulations for the levy of dues and rates) or extend any regulations made pursuant to that section for the purposes of this Act, and any regulations as so extended or applied shall be of the same effect as if made under this Act.

(1) So much of section 3 of the Oil in Navigable Waters Act as relate to the discharge of oil or mixture containing oil into the territorial waters of Nigeria from any vessel or apparatus used for transferring oil to any vessel shall, subject to the following provisions of this section, apply in relation to the area within which any oil terminal is situated, if situated outside the limits of the territorial waters, as they apply in relation to the whole of the sea within the seaward limits of the territorial waters.
(2) If any oil or mixture containing oil is discharged into any part of the sea referred to in subsection (1) of this section-
(a) from a pipe-line or any apparatus used for the purposes of transferring oil from or to a vessel;
(b) from a vessel; or
(c) as a result of any operation for evacuating oil,
the owner of the pipe-line or the owner of the vessel or the person in charge of the operation, as the case may be, is guilty of an offence under section 3 of the Oil in Navigable Waters Act (as applied by this section).
(3) Any person found guilty of an offence as aforesaid shall on conviction be liable to the same penalty as provided by section 6 of the Oil in Navigable Waters Act, and the special defences prescribed under section 4 thereof shall apply in relation to such offences as they apply for the purposes of that Act.
(4) The operation of the foregoing provisions of this section is without prejudice to the operation of any other provision of the Oil in Navigable Waters Act in so far as it applies in relation to any area within which there is situated any oil terminal, and effect shall be given to the provisions of that Act, accordingly.
(5) In this section, "oil" has the meaning given in section 20 of the Oil in Navigable Waters Act.

(1) As from the date of publication of this Act, an oil terminal-
(a)
shall not be installed by any person, except-
(i) by or under the authority of a licence or lease granted under Minerals and Mining Act; and
(ii) subject to the express approval in writing of the Minister of Petroleum Resources,
and any subsequent operation of such terminal by any person shall be in compliance with the requirements of this Act and such conditions as may be prescribed;
(b) shall-
(i) if in operation on the date of publication of this Act; and
(ii) unless such person complies with such conditions as may be prescribed for the payment of dues and fees within such period (or any extension of that period) as the Minister may in his discretion determine,
cease to be operated by that person until the said conditions have been duly complied with.
(2) For the purposes of this Act-
(a) every oil terminal; and
(b) the area within which the terminal is situated,
shall be established geographically with precise co-ordinates by an order published in the Federal Gazette by the Minister of Petroleum Resources.
(3) In this section-
(a) "oil terminal" means an oil-loading terminal, pumping or booster station, or other installation (or structure associated with a terminal, including its storage facilities), other than a terminal situated within "a port or any approaches thereto" within the meaning of the Nigerian Ports Authority Act;
(b) the reference to the area within which the terminal is situated includes a reference to-
(i) the area of the territorial waters;
(ii) the area of the superjacent waters of the continental shelf,
and the space above or below an area within which the oil terminal is situated (including the sea-bed and sub-soil of submarine area) shall be deemed to be part of the area, and sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii) of this paragraph shall be so construed.
(4) Any person who contravenes subsection (1) of this section shall be guilty of an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine of four thousand naira for each day on which the offence occurs.

(1) Subject to this Act, the provisions of the laws in force in Nigeria (apart from those specifically applied or extended by or under this Act) and as in force from time to time, and the provisions of any instrument made under any of those laws, shall apply in the area of the sea within which the oil terminal is situated.
(2) The provisions referred to in subsection (1) of this section apply to and in relation to all acts, matters, circumstances and things touching, concerning, or connected with the oil terminal or arising from its operations or connected with the storage or pumping of oil from such terminal, and not otherwise, and so apply as if that area were part of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
(3) This section does not-
(a) extend to the provisions of any law or instrument-
(i) in so far as they are incapable of application in the area of the sea within which such terminal is situated;
(ii) in so far as they are expressed, or by necessary implication, not to extend to or apply in that area;
(b) affect the operation that any law has apart from this section;
(c) apply to the provisions of any law or instrument that is applicable only in a State and within the authority of the government of the State.
(4) For the avoidance of doubt, sections 2 and 3 of the Territorial Waters Act (which relate to jurisdiction and restriction on trial of offences committed within the territorial waters of Nigeria) apply, in relation to offences committed under this Act (or any other enactment or instrument applied or extended by or under this Act, whether or not such offences are committed within the territorial waters) as they apply in respect of trial of offences committed within the territorial waters.
(5) Any provision applied or extended by or under this Act shall have effect with any necessary modifications and omissions.

This Act applies to all natural persons, whether Nigerian citizens or not, and whether resident in Nigeria or not, and to all corporations, whether incorporated or carrying on business in Nigeria or not.

Without prejudice to any other power to make regulations conferred by this Act and subject to the provisions of this Act, provisions may be made by regulations by the Minister-
(a) for prescribing anything to be prescribed under this Act;
(b) for the purposes of doing anything that is required to be done under this Act; and
(c) for providing that any provisions referred to in subsection (1) or excluded by subsection (3) of section 8 of this Act that are specified in the regulations do not apply by reasons of this section or apply with prescribed modifications only.

In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires, the following expressions have the meanings hereby assigned to them respectively, that is-
"Authority" means the Nigerian Ports Authority as constituted under section 1 of the Nigerian Ports Authority Act;
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"Convention" means the Convention entitled "Convention on the Continental Shelf", signed at Geneva on the 29th April, 1958, being the Convention, of which Nigeria is a party, and a copy of which in the English language is set out in the Second Schedule to this Act;
"master" has the meaning given in section 127 of the Nigerian Ports Authority Act;
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"Minister" means the Minister of Transport;
"oil" means crude oil of any description, liquefied petroleum gas or liquefied natural gas;
"oil terminal" has the meaning given in section 7 of this Act, and any other reference in this Act to the area within which an oil terminal is situated shall be construed as prescribed in that section;
"continental shelf" means the continental shelf, within the meaning of the Convention, adjacent to the coast of the Federal Republic of Nigeria;
"ship" has the meaning given in section 127 of the Nigerian Ports Authority Act; and
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"terminal dues" means such dues as may be levied under this Act on any ship evacuating oil at any oil terminal;
"territorial waters" means the territorial waters of Nigeria within the meaning of the Territorial Waters Act.

(1) This Act may be cited as the Oil Terminal Dues Act.