Vincent Toritseju
14 July 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos — A group under the aegis of National Association of Stevedoring Companies, NASC, has queried the non-involvement in the measurement of the quantity of crude oil exporter of the country is negatively affecting nation’s earnings.
Speaking at the just concluded stakeholders’ interactive forum organized by the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety, NIMASA, in Calabar, President of the NASC, Mr Bolaji Sunmola said the government has multi-phases, calibrated meters at the oil wellheads, flow station and export terminals to determine the quantity of crude oil produced and exported by the International Oil Companies, IOCs.
Sunmola also said that the machines that monitor loading into the vessels are owned, calibrated and operated by the IOCs without any form of supervision or participated by any government agency.
He said: “It has been observed that the Federal Government’s reliance on the international oil companies to determine the quantity of oil production is negatively affecting the country’s crude earnings.
“The country, therefore, lacks the comprehensive and independently verifiable metering infrastructure, thereby relying only on the information provided by the IOCs or indigenous operators for production figures.
“This has raised serious concerns over the issues of transparency and accountability in the oil industry regarding the quantity of crude oil production in Nigeria.
Experts, who believe that Nigeria is being short-changed, have questioned the production the figures from the operators, which the country has lived on since the beginning of crude oil production in the country.
“There have always been discrepancies between what vessels declare to the Nigerian authorities and what they declare as originating from Nigeria at an international market.”
The group also explained that the absence of dockworkers in these platforms and terminals has resulted in insecurity where arms and ammunitions find their way easily into the country through these scarcely monitored corridors.