NNPC fails to remit N77.92b, says NEITI

The Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) on Thursday accused the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) of under-remitting N77.92billion to the Federation Account in 2017.

The report which is pilot study on the sale of crude oil, however, noted that there is an ongoing reconciliation of the amount that arose from KPMG Forensic audit.

In a statement endorsed by its Director, Communications and Advocacy, Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, NEITI said:  “N77.92 billion was under-remitted by NNPC to the Federation Account from Domestic Crude Allocation in 2017. NNPC acknowledges the under-remittance and states that there is an ongoing reconciliation to net off the N77.92 billion from “the established Federation indebtedness to the Corporation of N797billion arising arising from KPMG Forensic audit of the Corporation at the instance of the Federation.”

It said the total revenue from sale of federation share of oil and gas for 2017 was $14.5 billion—$13.18 billion or 90.8 per cent from crude oil and $1.32 billion or 9.1per cent from gas.

The report said the NNPC, deducted N297 billion from earnings from the Domestic Crude Allocation as costs and losses, broken down as follows: N141.6 billion for under-recovery on petroleum products; N25 billion for crude and product losses; and N130.4 billion for pipeline repairs and maintenance.

According to NEITI, from the report, the total crude oil production for 2017 was 692 million barrels.

Out of this volume, the share that went to the federation was 240.9 million barrels representing 35per cent of the total crude oil production for the year 2017.

Analysis of the year under review showed that the federation share was four per cent higher than the 231.6 million barrels in the same category for 2016 but was 19per cent lower than the 297.8 million barrels for 2015.

The report said  it showed that while there was a slight improvement on the figure for 2016 (a year characterized by vandalism and sabotage of oil facilities), crude production for 2017 was about a fifth less than the 2015 level.

The statement read: “A further breakdown of key findings in the report show that 240.9 million barrels federation share for 2017 was disaggregated as follows: Domestic Crude Allocation (DCA): 105. 9 million barrels or 44 per cent of federation share; Federal inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Liftings: 57.3 million barrels or 24 per cent of federation share; Federation Export: 50. 2 million barrels or 21per cent of federation share; Third Party Financing: 17.6 million or seven per cent of federation share; DPR liftings: 9.9 million barrels or four per cent of federation share.