Disquiet over Nigeria’s N7trn oil revenue in eight years

The oil revenue generated by the Federal Government of Nigeria rose to N6,671,081,710,411.26 in eight years, 2010 to 2017. However, the utilization of the revenue for national development remains a big question stakeholders in the Nigerian project continue to ask.

National Daily gathered that the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), made the revelation of the approximately N7 trillion oil revenue in its 2017 Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Annual Report in Lagos on Monday.

The DPR had classified the sources of the revenue as being derived from oil and gas royalty, gasflare penalty, concession rentals and miscellaneous oil revenue. 

The Report indicated that Nigeria revenue realized from gas flare penalty rose to N3,849,873,091.61 in 2012,while its gas royalty was N33,173,790,789.60 in 2017.

The Report also indicated that the total volume of gas produced in 2017 was 2.94 trillion cubic feet, representing average of 8.05 billion standard cubic feet daily production.

“The volume of gas produced comprised of 1.73 trillion cubic feet Associated Gas, representing 58.74 per cent of the gas produced and 1.21 trillion cubic feet Non-Associated Gas, representing 41.26 per cent of the total gas. Also 2.59 trillion cubic feet (88.13 per cent) of the produced gas was utilized while a total of 21.02 billion cubic feet, representing 0.7 per cent was attributed to gas shrinkage. The remaining 11.04 per cent of the produced gas, was flared” the DPR highlighted.

The report also revealed the average gas utilized in 2017 was 7.09 billion cubic feet. A total of 324.30 billion cubic feet of produced associated gas was said to be attributed to flare during the period in view.

“The year 2017 experienced a slight increase in gas flare volumes with respect to the volume of gasproduced. This increase was several factors which includes: constant equipment upset/failures in aging facilities ,sabotage, High GOR in aging wells, funding challenges in executing gas handling projects and other operational challenges experienced by the operators,” the Report explained.

It was also indicted that in 2017, a total of 754,265,049 barrels of oil was produced at an estimated average daily production of 2.07 million barrels per day; noting that there was a 5.6 per cent increase over the average production rate for 2016.

The Report showed that the total number of fields (producing and shut-in) as at the end of December, 2017 stood at 285 for the 44 oil producing companies. The average deferment for 2017 was indicated to be 725,859 barrels of oil per day.

However, the enormous revenue is yet to reflect the current status of development in Nigeria. Rather, the rising revenue profile culminated into perennial budget increase and declining service delivery and infrastructure development by the federal government.