Oil firms owe federation N1.3tr 2020 revenue

About 51 oil and gas companies owed the federation (Department of Petroleum Resources and Federal Inland Revenue Service) N1.32 trillion ($3.17 billion) in 2020 just as petrol subsidy gulped N106bn between January and June 2020.

The Executive Secretary of Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), Dr. Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, stated this while presenting the 2020 oil and gas industry report in Abuja on Monday. He said the debt figure dropped from the N2.6tr owed by 77 firms in 2019.

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The report, which was unveiled on Monday along with the solid mineral report and the Fiscal Allocation and Statutory Disbursement (FASD) report in Abuja, stated that the N106.9bn subsidy was paid only from January to June 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic era. Outstanding N26.74bn subsidy was yet to be paid for the year by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), which oversees this. Nigeria also imported 20.01bn litres of petrol, 52 million litres of kerosene and 5.33bn litres of diesel in 2020.

Based on data from 22 of the 69 participating companies, 39.16 million barrels (mmbls) of crude valued at $44,73m (or N15.71bn) were stolen in 349 cases of pipeline vandalism in 2020, indicating a drop in the case from 1,387 cases in 2019.

While also launching the NEITI Audit Management System (NAMS), the board Chairman of NEITI, Olusegun Adekunle, said, “These 2020 reports provide useful insights into the current state and future date of Nigeria’s natural resources,” noting that they will serve as tools for accountability, national planning and development.

The Chief Finance Officer of NNPC LTD, Umar Isa Ajiya, said the firm was promoting transparency and accountability.

“We are the first agency of the government to publish our audited report. We did that for 2020 year and we will publish that of 2021 by mid-year. We will be transparent but we will not be naked… the NNPC of today is not the NNPC of yesterday,” he noted.

Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Mohammed Nami, said through collaboration with NEITI and other agencies, FIRS generated N6.4 trillion in 2021. He added that with more data from NEITI, FIRS will improve its revenue collection base.