A forum to dialogue on the installation of metering infrastructure to adequately measure the quality of crude produced in Nigeria will hold in the first quarter of 2014.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!This is contained in a statement issued on Monday by Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, the Director of Communications of the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) in Abuja.
It said that the debate on the possibility of embracing a metering system to accurately measure the quality of crude produced had remained a major issue in NEITI oil and gas industry reports.
The statement added that the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) had proposed to collaborate with NEITI to organise the policy dialogue.
It said that the proposed dialogue would assemble individuals and stakeholders knowledgeable on the issue of metering and what is obtainable in the country.
“The participants will appraise the status quo, its challenges and the cost to the nation, implication for the sector and the constraints for remediation.
“It will also recommended actionable strategies for implementing a remediation action plan on metering that the in-coming Inter-ministerial Task Team can implement.’’
The statement said that the programme became necessary because the country depend largely on the International Oil Companies (IOCs) to determine the volume of resources extracted and exported.
“Several components of government take and revenue is dependent on volume and so the accuracy of this substantially determines revenue.
“Considering the non-renewable nature of oil and gas and the need to maximise revenues and government take, reliance on IOCs for volumes places the nation at a disadvantage as under-disclosure of volume works in their favour,’’ it said.
The statement also said that a Roundtable for Civil Society Organisation originally scheduled to hold on Tuesday and Wednesday next week has been shifted to Dec. 16 and Dec. 17.
Others are the Forum put in place in partnership with the Revenue Watch Institute to review the findings and recommendations on various NEITI independent audit reports earlier slated for this week.
The forum, which will now hold in the first quarter of next year, will among other things, examine the NEITI oil and gas audit reports, covering 1999 to 2011 and the Nuhu Ribadu-Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force report.
Also to be examined are the report on the KPMG audit of NNPC, the Kalu Idika Kalu reports on refineries and the House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee report on fuel subsidy (2009-2011).
Others are the Magnus Abe-led Senate Joint Committee on Petroleum Resources (2005-2011) and the Aig-Imoukhuede-led Technical Committee on Subsidy Claims and Payments. (NAN)
