House Mandates DPR To Publish Figures Of Daily Crude Oil Sale

ABUJA, October 04, (THEWILL) - The Federal House of Representatives on Thursday mandated the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to provide accurate information on daily crude production in the country.

According to the House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream), chaired by Rep Ajibola Muraina, which conducted oversight on the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), the situation where the country’s daily crude production data are shrouded in secrecy is lamentable.

Murina condemned a a situation where discordant figures would be coming from the data supplied by officials of NNPC and DPR, and mandated the agency to ensure that daily reports of the volume of crude lifted out of country are made public.

Responding, Managing Director of DPR, Austin Olorunsola promised to start posting daily crude production data on the agency’s website, and allow Nigerians access to the site without passwords.

“We have begun to work on the need to make the nation’s crude export as transparent as possible,” he said. “In the next two weeks, all data needed would be forwarded to you and placed on our website. People would not even need to have password to assess the website. After all, daily production data are made public on websites of some other oil producing counties in the world.”

Asked why there are discrepancies in the pump price of petroleum products across the country, Olorunsola said officially, there should not have been any discrepancies.

He maintained that the official price of PMS stands at N97 per litre across the country but acknowledged that there have been reports that some filling stations sell above the recommended pump price. He disclosed that he had mandated his directors and inspectors across the country to clamp down on any erring station.

“Officially, there is no disparity. It is only that Nigerians are the ones making life difficult for one another. I have personally instructed that any station selling above the official pump price be sealed up,” he added.

Only on Wednesday, Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, had faulted the accuracy of the nation's crude oil production figure, which according to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), currently stands at 2.7 million barrels per day (bpd).

This figure he described as inaccurate, as well as claims by Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke that about $7bn was lost to oil theft in 2011.