No capacity to know exact crude oil production — NEITI

The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, has said there is a lack of capacity to go deep into the shores to determine the exact crude oil production of Nigeria.

Orji who disclosed this on Thursday during a courtesy visit to the Director General of the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria, (FRCN), Dr. Mansur Liman in Abuja, said: “We do not have capacity to go deep shores to know how much we are producing. As we speak, it is very difficult for any Nigerian to ascertain how much actually we are producing.”

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Orji said this is because all the companies that go deep offshore and are involved in offshore exploration are not indigenous companies and they cannot really protect the interest of the country.

“But we must concede to those companies, they are doing a great job here because without them there will be no oil industry”, he added.

He also said all efforts to reform Nigeria’s petroleum industry have not yielded needed results because those who benefit from the outdated law governing the sector have continued to resist the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).

“The only law that governs the oil and gas industry in Nigeria currently is the Petroleum Act of 1958. And if you use this law in computations of taxes and royalties based on a very old rate, Nigeria loses a lot of revenue.”