Falsification of gas flare data: Nigeria loses $1 billion —FG

THE Federal Government, on Tuesday, disclosed that it was losing between $500 million to $1billion revenue due to the falsification of gas flare data in the country.

It, therefore, announced its resolve to set up an independent tracking mechanism in 2017 to ascertain the actual volume of gas that was flared in Nigeria, as the commodity was being priced in the United States dollar.

Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu made this disclosure in Abuja at the Gas Competence Seminar with the theme: “Towards ending gas flaring and unlocking gas potential in Nigeria”.

According to him, “there is an urgency of yesterday to drive the policy that would enable us get out of gas flaring. I hear you talking about 10 per cent non-compliance, meaning that we have achieved a 90 per cent factor. My gut feeling is that these numbers are very mistaken.

“Beginning next year, we will be putting up an independent tracking mechanism, not relying on figures from the IOCs and from DPR (Department of Petroleum Resources), to find out really what is the flare volume. My feeling is that there are a lot of management of those figures to suit the cap of the penalties that are being charged.

“My take is that we lose over half a billion to a billion of government revenue looking at the basis of the present penalties position. Nobody is effectively monitoring the volume, so when you actually go for the real effect of what is flared, in terms of statistics, it is much higher than that figures. However, we must appreciate the efforts that have been done in the past, efforts to increase penalties among others”, he explained.

Dr. Kachikwu explained that the marginal rise in the price of crude oil in the past few days was not an indication of an imminent boom in the cost of the commodity in the nearest future.

The minister, who explained that the decisions by OPEC and non-OPEC members to cut down production might have warranted the marginal rise in crude prices, then added that further increase in prices could not be guaranteed as this might not last.

“Now, as good as all these may be, the reality is that in the world, the era of high priced oil is gone. In fact, it is going to take a lot of work to sustain the $60 per barrel price and it is going to take a lot of discipline and concerted effort as well. Ensuring gas commercialisation, utilisation and transportation would go a long way in buoying Nigeria’s economy and wondered why Nigeria was still facing electricity problems despite producing a lot of gas”, he added.

Earlier, the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, said that Nigeria’s perennial power problems were man-made and not as a result of technical challenges.

He stated that in the last couple of days, gas flaring and most especially, sabotage had deprived most of the country’s critical gas power plants of gas, thereby, leading to a significant decline in power supply across the country.