Reps summon agencies over $20bn unaccounted oil sales

The House of Representatives House Adhoc Committee on Oil Theft has summoned the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other agencies to explain a $20 billion oil crude sales allegedly unaccounted for from 2005 to 2012.

The Committee resumed sitting Wednesday on the investigation on crude oil theft, after it examined submissions from stakeholders in the oil and gas sector.

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Speaking during the appearance of the DPR management, Chairman of the Committee, Rep. Peter Akpatason, said the Committee discovered anomalies that require clarifications from the major stakeholders.

“Today, the committee is meeting with DPR, tomorrow and Friday, the committee shall be meeting NNPC and CBN, respectively.

“The Committee requested and obtained schedules of crude oil produced and lifting between 2005 and 2019. Forensic analysis of the data revealed a very wide margin between what was reported as produced and what was lifted.

“Between 2005 and 2012, DPR reported production of 1,746,621,167 (estimated 1.747 billion) barrels from four sampled oil terminals of Escravos, Bonny, Forcados and Bonga,” he explained.

Akpatason said out of this production volume, only 1,417,200,848 (1.417bn) barrels were accounted for as having been lifted officially.

“A whopping volume of 329,420,319 (329.4 million) barrels, valued at over $20 billion, could not be accounted for. The same trend of infractions was observed in 2016 to 2019.”

Reacting, the Director/CEO of DPR, Sarki Auwalu, said the process starts with the well from which the crude oil is drilled from.

He said the difference in the figure was due to crude oil theft mainly in the land terminal for crude oil lifting.

“The problem is that we have 30 terminals in Nigeria and these terminals, five are land terminals.

“Most of the thefts are coming from land terminals because the land producers have to use pipelines to transport the crude into the terminals for export,” he clarified.