The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says it has achieved 98 per cent automation of all transactions involving the supply, marketing and sale of the various grades and blends of Nigeria’s crude oil across the world.

The Corporation disclosed this in a statement signed by Mr Ndu Ughamadu, its Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, on Thursday in Abuja.

It said that the automation exercise which would be concluded in 2018 had enabled the corporation to achieve an end-to-end monitoring of every barrel of crude oil sold in the country.

“Today at a click of a button we can tell you how much crude oil is sold, at what price, who bought it and where it has gone to, etc,” he said.

He said that the projection was to operate a complete paperless crude oil data management regime in line with the ongoing transformation of the processes which had witnessed sweeping reforms since 2015.

He listed the reforms to include; the open bid process of customer selection for lifting and purchase of Nigeria’s crude oil grades, emplacement of efficient crude for product import processes, leading to savings of $1 billion in one year.

Other reforms, it said was the introduction of improved pricing system, which had evolved into a robust and auditable pricing mechanism.

The statement also explained that the reform had led to the harmonisation of Nigeria’s crude oil data and lifting information, providing access to major internationally recognised reporting agencies like Plat and Argus Media to achieve real time reporting of Nigeria’s crude oil transactions.

It further said this development had enabled the country to eliminate the perennial disagreement with its major stakeholder, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on actual production and lifting figures.

On the recent Policy Dialogue on crude oil sales and reserve Management in Nigeria organised by the African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Development, it said the forum provided the corporation an avenue to clarify some misinformation on the operations of crude oil marketing.

It said NNPC would continue to engage members of the public and other critical stakeholders to keep them abreast of innovations in the supply, marketing and sale of the various grades and blends of Nigeria’s crude oil across the world. (NAN)

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