The Department of Petroleum Resources has faulted the assertion by the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, Orji Ogbonnaya-Orji, that the exact volume of Nigeria’s crude production is not known.
Ogbonnaya-Orji was quoted as saying on Thursday that the exact volume of crude oil produced in Nigeria, especially at the deep offshore fields, was not known by anyone.
“We wish to state that this assertion should be disregarded, as every litre of crude produced in Nigeria is adequately captured during the process of extraction,” the DPR said on Friday in a statement by its Head of Public Affairs, Mr Paul Osu.
According to the statement, the monitoring of crude oil production and accounting is the primary responsibility of the DPR and the basis for determination of the government’s take through royalty payments by operators.
It said, “As a further step to boosting crude accounting process from production to export, DPR recently launched the National Production Monitoring System, an online platform for direct and independent acquisition of production data from oil and gas facilities in Nigeria.
“NPMS as an electronic data transmission tool at production and export terminals is designed to better predict the performance of oil and gas reservoirs and better production forecasting.
“The NPMS tool enables DPR to exercise surveillance, perform production monitoring and data analysis for utilisation and forecasting.”
The DPR said it would continue to develop robust and strategic initiatives to ensure timely and accurate payment of rents, royalties and other revenues due to the government.
