Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has called for effective and adequate metering infrastructure and enhanced security of Nigeria’s oil and gas assets to stem the huge amount of loss.
The Executive Secretary of NEITI, Mr. Waziri Adio, made the call against the background of the $1.45bn worth of crude oil lost in 2015.
The amount of loss is contained in the NEITI 2015 Oil and Gas Industry Audit Report which was released on Friday.
According to the report, Nigeria lost 27.1 million barrels of crude oil produced in 2015.
When added to the $25 million worth of crude that the Pipelines and Product Management Company (PPMC) reported as lost, it said, $1.45 billion worth of crude was lost in that year.
The losses, according to NEITI, were blamed on attacks by militant among other similar cases, including theft.
“The volume of crude oil declared lost to theft by 18 operators in 2015 was 27.1 million barrels. Though this amounted to only 3.5% of total oil production, the loss was valued at $1.4 billion. PPMC also declared loss of crude worth $25 million, bringing the total declared losses to $1.45 billion.
“Also, PPMC declared losing products worth N56.4 billion, broken down as follows: N52 billion for losses on petrol, N3.8 billion for losses on diesel, and N123 million for losses on kerosene. Deferred production on account of sabotage or repairs came to 57 million barrels,” the report reads in part.
READ ALSO: INVESTIGATION: How First Bank sacks, shortchanges over a thousand staff using shady HR schemes
NEITI further disclosed that oil and gas revenues plunged from $54.5 billion in 2014 to $24.8 billion in 2015, adding that the country’s oil production fell from 798 million barrels in 2014 to 776 million barrels in 2015.
It said that while $3.7 billion and N80 billion were the total outstanding revenue from the sector as at 2015, losses of $2.2 billion and N60 billion were recorded.
Unreconciled revenues amounted to N317 billion, according to the report.
In the report, it is stated too that the nation suffered a 54.6% decline in oil revenues but only a slight 2.7% fall in oil production.
The development, according to the report, resulted from the drastic reduction in the unit price of crude oil in the global market.
