Oil firms capitalizing on inadequate metering to defraud Nigeria — NEITI

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, says it is intensifying efforts to stop international oil companies from defrauding Nigeria of billions of naira due to inadequate metering facilities at the production and export terminals.

Speaking during a visit of officials of the International Monetary Fund, IMF, to its headquarters, Mr. Ogbonnaya Orji, Acting Executive Secretary of NEITI, lamented that presently royalties are being paid by the international oil companies (IOC) based on computations using lifting volumes instead of production volumes.

Orji stated that several efforts to entrench transparency in the metering process had been met with resistance from the IOCs, hence the decision to collaborate with the Nigerian Academy of Science to fashion out a means to stop the IOCs from shortchanging the country.

He said, “NEITI is working to ensure that the correct estimates of Nigeria’s crude oil lifted is gotten and we will not depend on estimates given by the IOCs.”

He further stated that the funding of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s, NNPC, Joint Venture (JV) cash call was fraught with a lot of irregularities, adding that due to the delay in the payment, the country is forced to pay higher than usual.

Orji disclosed that NEITI is working with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, over the unbundling of the corporation, stating specifically that issues about the unbundling process would be discussed at a meeting between officials of NEITI and the NNPC scheduled for next week.