We shall reveal oil block owners next year, says NEITI

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), says it would unveil the owners or holders of Nigeria’s crude oil blocks by January 2020.

Speaking at a press briefing in Abuja, the Executive Secretary of NEITI, Mr. Waziri Adio, explained that NEITI planned to meet in January 1, 2020 deadline on it, after which the agency would make public the register of everyone holding oil blocks’ licences and solid minerals rights in Nigeria.

He further explained: “On the micro level, we also have a commitment under the EITI that we are going to have a register of all the companies operating in the extractive sector in Nigeria by January 1, 2020.

“I want to tell you that whether it is under EITI or commitment under OGP, there is political will and support at the highest level – this is a commitment the President (Muhammadu Buhari) made himself.

“Different agencies are working on this. We are leading the one on the extractive sector, and our hope is that we are working with regulators in the extractive sector – the MCO (Mining Cadastral Office) in the solid minerals sector, the DPR (Department of Petroleum Resources) in the oil and gas sector, and some others.”

“We hope to beat the deadline. We hope we are going to have a register of beneficial owners before the end of this year. It will not be a perfect register, but it will be a good place to start,” he added.

When asked if the government’s recent claims that IOCs owed the country over $20 billion in tax debts was not captured in NEITI’s past audit reports of operations in the oil and gas sector, Adio, stated that the debt may be from the 1993 Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) the government failed to review and update its expired terms.

“If you remember, there was a ruling of the Supreme Court that the federal government should work with the state governments of Rivers; Bayelsa and Akwa Ibom, to recover some money based on the fact that 1993 PSCs stated that when the price of oil goes beyond $20 per barrel, the term should be negotiated, and we did a report on Sunday which also focused on the second part of that same law which looks at 15 years after.

“My sense is that the money that the companies are asked to pay is on the account of that $20 threshold which the Supreme Court has ruled on. The 1993 PSC were put in place at a time when the prices of oil was very low and technologies for offshore production of oil were very expensive and uncertain, and for us to boost our production, we needed to give all kinds of incentives to the companies,” he suggested.

On the EITI’s latest ranking of Nigeria, Adio stated that only seven countries including Nigeria, have achieved the highest status, and that the recognition meant well for Nigeria.