By e360
A group of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and media practitioners covering activities of the Nigerian oil and gas sector has launched an advocacy and campaigns for proper and adequate metering of the sector.
The group, with support from Facility for Oil Sector Transformation (FOSTER), held its inaugural strategy meeting Thursday, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, where it began trending the #OilMetering to draw attention to issues of inadequate measurement in the sector and the resultant revenue loss occasioned by the development.
Known as advocacy for metering network, the group’s main objective is to create a wide spread understanding of the issues with current metering infrastructure, including the amount of loss and revenue to the country and to distill key advocacy messages that will resonate with citizens and lead to proper metering of the sector.
Dr. Sunday Kanshio, Consultant, Hydrocarbon Metering Study, while making a presentation titled: Hydrocarbon metering in Nigeria: Status, Challenges and way forward, observed that the country is losing huge amounts of revenue annually to inadequate metering infrastructure. “Measurement is necessary because it provides reliable facts about custody transfers, well performance, environmental concerns, production allocations, refinery performance,” Dr. Kanshio a lecturer at petroleum and engineering department, Baze University, Abuja, said.
While the exact amount lost to inadequate metering of the sector is unknown, it is estimated to be in trillions of naira annually. Audits by the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in 2009 found grossly inadequate measurement infrastructure across the value chain and recommended a number of changes to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) guidelines to reflect global changes.
However, the network regretted that eight years down the line, the recommendations of the report have not been implemented and Nigeria continues to lose huge amounts of revenue daily.
A current study being conducted by NEITI and Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMFAC) with support from FOSTER, is expected to provide fresh insights into the challenge and hopefully attract needed attention from the government.
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