The House of Representatives has queried the Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) over the non-remittance of an outstanding sum of $278,184,937.72 from the transfer of OML 24 in 2019.

According to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) records, OML 24 was transferred to
NNPCL/Nigeria Export Processing Council (NEPC) in 2019 for a Signature Bonus of $309,094,374.72 of which only $30,909,437 has been paid.

This, it said, left an outstanding of $278,184,937.72 due to government from the NNPC/NEPL.

The GCEO of the NNPCL Mele Kyari painted a gloomy picture of the country’s oil and gas industry.

He said: “We understand very clearly that our national revenue is the premised on the oil and gas industry. It’s very crucial that this industrygets all the focus that it deserves and is necessary. We also understand that every other sector of the economy are clearly tied to the functionality and performance of the oil and gas, including other taxes that are collected by government like value added tax and so on. Many of them are clearly related to the performance of our industry.

“It is very typical anywhere in the world, the first line of deduction from any revenue is your cost, otherwise there will not be another revenue for you to deduct from.

“And that means you have to continuously invest so that you’ll continue to make more money beyond the investment that you’re making. This is the only way that you can grow. I also confirm that we have a very very peculiar industry and it’s very clear thatwe are one of the most expensive production environment anywhere in the world.

“This is also very true and there can be lamentations on why this is so, but we also face the issue. First of all, today, there’s nowhere in the world where people have inserted over 5,000 illegal collections into your production line. In it doesn’t happen anywhere, it’s nobody’s experience, it doesn’t happen any part of the world.

“Today, we have destroyed over 6,000 illegal refineries that are tapping crude oil from our production. This doesn’t happen anywhere in the world and nobody can factor it into the process. Once you create this situation of uncertainty, which by the way is not new,” he said.

He said the country has huge security risk that is stopping it from maximizingproduction and also declining investment in the industry.

Chairman, House Committee on Finance, Hon. James Faleke expressed concern about the cost of crude oil production and its impact on government revenue.

He added that the transfer of the assets reduces the amount of oil accruable to the Federation.(The Nation)