By: Ifeanyi Izeze
To say that Nigeria has obviously become a nation of absurdities is an understatement. It is actually anorisirisi country where those who should know and direct the ignorant majority are all confused either by outright design or by callous oversight. How else can anybody describe the situation where the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on 3rd September said Nigeria pumped 2.12 million barrels of crude oil per day in the first quarter of this year while the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) from another end of the same Abuja came out that 2.97 million barrels of produced crude oil was fiscalised and 2.24 million barrels on the average was exported on daily basis throughout the same period under review.
Who should actually give the authentic oil production figures to the public- NNPC or CBN? Governments official oil production figures had usually come from the National Bureau of Statistics (under the ministry of National Planning), but what is not clear is whether the bureau collects its data from the Petroleum Ministry, NNPC (both under the Presidency) or the CBN (under the Ministry of Finance) agencies that sometimes on their own release output figures impromptu. The tragedy of accountability in oil revenue earnings in this country is that for a very long time now, figures from these agencies rarely agree. Should this not worry anybody who is concerned about the issues of corruption in our oil and gas sector?
Is it not surprising that the figures released by these two critical government agencies- one in charge of everything  oil and gas in the country and the other in charge of everything revenue/money accruing and expended by government, are at variance with a yelling gap of over 120, 000 barrels of oil per day throughout the period under review? So is the NNPC saying that it produced and sold more oil than the CBN captured in its revenue accounting? This is not funny at all.
Let us put this thing in an ordinary man’s language: 120, 000 barrels per day will give you 10.8 million barrels for the period under review (three months) and at the average spot market price for our crude oil grade at $117 per barrel we have $1.2636 billion which at the exchange rate of $1 to N160, gives N202.17 billion. So this is the money in the gap between the figures given by the NNPC and the one acknowledged by the CBN as received during the time. Nigeria we hail thee!
Do we still need anybody to tell us that there are massive leakages in government oil revenues? This has nothing to do with crude oil theft as the volume of the produced oil we are talking about in this case were the fiscalised consignment and the NNPC’s share from its various production arrangements. Can the NNPC say that during this period, it lost over 120, 000 barrels per day of its produced oil and as such cannot account for it?
We need to look at this closely because it would help us zero-in to the actual point where the ever-increasing case of crude oil theft or maybe diversion is actually domiciled.
The NNPC, minus the trunklines supplying crude feedstock to the name-plate refineries in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna, does not have dedicated crude oil flowlines for exports of its shared crude.
Everything produced goes to the various export terminals including the floating production systems (FPSOs) scattered throughout the nations offshore arena. So how come the apex oil concern have been losing over 120, 000 barrels per day of its share before selling the stuff? Or does it sell without the knowledge of or rather record in the Central Bank to warrant the variation?
Though the CBN figure indicated an increase in production in the second quarter from the first quarter average of 2.06 million barrels per day, it is well below the 2.8 million barrels per day which the Ministry of Finance projected in the 2012 budget. It would be recalled that the benchmark oil price in the budget was $72 a barrel, well below the prevailing market price and Nigeria is supposed to save the extra revenues in the Excess Crude Account (ECA). So what this means is that we are still going to have the now familiar excess crude arguments between the federal and state governments because the centre would dip its hands into the ECA to salvage its planned expenditures for the year.
We need to consider this issue beyond surface politics or just mere criticizing of government officials because if we look at this controversy critically, we may be able to begin to pin down where exactly to face in the nation’s efforts at addressing the shameful practice of crude oil theft in this country.
Whether or not the gap represents missing volumes of our produced crude oil, Nigeria as a country has gone beyond such recklessness where top functionaries of the same government cannot rhyme on one issue especially when monies- either earnings or expenditures are involved. Same scenario played out throughout the ill-fated Farouk Lawan oil subsidy probe.
Every government official and even top civil servants that came to the panel had a different story to tell with different figures on the same issue. It does not depict a people that are serious-minded. The CBN would say one thing, the NNPC would say a different thing just as both the Ministers of Finance and Petroleum had been singing discordant tunes on oil money matters.
Let’s get more serious as a people.
Just last week, the visibly ecstatic new NNPC boss, Andrew Yakubu announced that the nation’s oil production output reached an all-time high of 2.7 million bpd in August though he did not indicate whether the announced output was a one-time spike or the now sustainable daily production figure. He did not say also whether the figure he reeled out was the average production figure for the month so that we can now expect that government must have raked-in higher revenue with the boost in production.
According to the NNPC boss, Nigeria’s production output had not exceeded 2.4 million barrels per day for many years running. He attributed the increase in crude oil production to the security measures put in place by the Federal Government in the Niger Delta region, which according to him, was beginning to yield positive results. He said Nigeria’s oil and gas sector had benefitted from various proactive measures and collective efforts of major stakeholders to forestall challenges such as crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism that had retarded growth of the sector. The NNPC man failed to even make a casual mention of the whopping N5.6 billion allegedly paid annually to ex-warlords to safeguard oil pipelines and other facilities in the Niger Delta. If our production output appreciated just because we are doling out billions of naira to few people, then such feat should not be celebrated by NNPC because it is an expensive game and of course a short-time thing.
(IFEANYI IZEZE can be reached on: iizeze@yahoo.com; 234-8033043009)