Nigeria’s losses an average of 115.926 barrels of crude oil valued at roughly $300 million daily.
The Chief Executive Officer of newly established Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Gbenga Komolafe disclosed the homongus figures in Abuja when he received members of the Senate Committee on Petroleum who were on oversight duties to his commission.
Nigeria’s daily oil production as at January 2022 is put at
1.396 mmbopd from an Opec quota of 1.683 million barrels per day.
Komolafe who attributed the loss to illegal bunkering and pipeline vandalism said his commission is working with other relevant agencies and Nigeria’s security services to curb the trend.
NUPRC is one of the industry regulatory commissions established from the defunct Department of Petroleum Resource(DPR) upon the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act(PIA) last September.
Responding, the Chairman, Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream, Albert Bassey expressed disappointment at the volume of Nigeria’s oil loss; stressing that the situation can no longer be tolerated especially with the regulatory commission and the PIA in place.
He therefore charged Komolafe and his entire management team to buckle up quickly to their responsibilities especially as regards providing firm regulatory directions for the smooth take off of the PIA five months after it was signed into law.
Bassey said his Committee and by extention will not accept any failure that comes with the non-implementation of the PIA even as he issued stern warning to the Commission Chief Executive to either do the job or get fired.
“If you cannot do the work then you resign. It is either you get the job done or you resign. You cannot afford to disappoint the President who reposed so much confidence in you and gave you this appointment”,
“Five months after PIA it is unacceptable that we are still groping without the necessary regulatory direction to drive to he sector and for the PIA and its benefits to come to fruition”.
Considered crucial are guidelines from the commission on implementation of Host Community Trust fund
To majority of the lawmakers,
NUPRC appears to be heavily under a number of external influences which have made it extremely difficult to function independently as envisaged by the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).
Also speaking, Senator Sandy Onu advised the CCE to ward off all external influence and get down to work; emphasizing that what the Senate had seen in the last 5 months from the commission has been more of “motion without any movement”.
The visit by the Senate Committee on Petroleum Upstream is the first in the series of its planned engagements with critical stakeholders this year and for the smooth implementation of the PIA as passed by the National Assembly.
