Nigeria has achieved 98 percent automation of all transactions involving the supply, marketing and sale of the various grades and blends of its crude oil across the world, state oil firm, NNPC says.
Group General Manager, Crude Oil Marketing Division of the Corporation, Malam Mele Kyari, said Wednesday in an interview with Oil & Gas Forum, NNPC Weekly TV show, that the automation exercise which would be concluded in 2018 had enabled the corporation to achieve an end-to-end monitoring of every barrel of crude oil sold in the country.
The projection, he said, was to operate a complete paperless crude oil data management regime in line with the ongoing transformation of the corporations processes which has witnessed sweeping reforms since 2015.
“Today at a click of a button we can tell you how much crude oil is sold, at what price, who bought it and where it has gone to etc,’’ Mr Kyari said.
According to him, the reforms so far implemented include; the open bid process of customer selection for lifting and purchase of Nigeria’s crude oil grades, emplacement of efficient crude for product import processes, leading to savings of $1 billion in one year as well as the introduction of improved pricing system, which has evolved into a robust and auditable pricing mechanism.
Mr Kyari also explained that the reforms had led to the harmonization of Nigeria’s crude oil data and lifting information, providing access to major internationally recognized reporting agencies like Plat and Argus Media to achieve real time reporting of Nigeria’s crude oil transactions.
This development had enabled the country to eliminate the perennial disagreement with its major stakeholder, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on actual production and lifting figures.