The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives (NEITI), has disclosed that the Federal Government realised the sum of $305 billion as revenue inflows from the oil and gas sector from 2014 to 2024.
Executive secretary/national Coordinator or NEITI, Dr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji disclosed this when he appeared before the Senate Public Accounts Committee (SPAC) in Abuja.
In his presentation on the 2021 – 2023 reports on Oil, Gas and Solid Minerals in the country, Orji said Nigeria earned $54.5 in 2014, $24.79 in 2015, $17.05 in 2016, $20.9 – 2017, $32.62 – 2018, $34.21 – 2019, $20.43 – 2020, $23.04 – 2021, $35.7 – 2022 and $30.86 in 2023.
He further disclosed that the country earned $831.14 from the oil and gas sector from 1999 – 2023.
He said the country produced 800.49 barrels of crude oil in 2013, 798.60 barrels in 2014, 776.6 – 2015, 659.30 – 2016, 690.50 – 2017, 701.10 – 2018, 735.20 – 2019, 646.70 – 2020, 656.20 – 2021, 490.95 – 2022 and 537.00 – 2023.
He equally put the amount of crude oil losses between 2009 and 2023 at 701.48 million barrels.
Orji also told the lawmakers that gas production in the country between 2019 and 2023, stood at 13,817,622 Standard Cubic Feet (scf).
He, however added that Nigeria requires injection of $200billion into gas infrastructure for maximisation of the natural resources as the ninth highest gas producer in the World and number one in Africa.
Orji said the $200billion is required to put in place the requisite infrastructure to increase the production of gas resources in the country.
He said: “Based on NEITI’s findings, Nigeria needs to invest at least $20billion per year into gas infrastructure for a period of ten years. The only thing that Qatar Energy does is gas processing through requisite infrastructure.
“So, in Nigeria, what we need is to invest in gas infrastructure to evacuate gas and our study shows that we need an initial investment of $20 billion annually for 10 years to be able to generate the kind of gas infrastructure required to provide gas for the whole of Africa and beyond.”
When asked what NEITI is doing on alleged $8.5billion unremitted revenue into the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CR) by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission in 2023, Orji said the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has commenced investigations into the issue.
He however added that the Solid Minerals sector is not giving the country desired revenue as yearly proceeds from the sector is less than one per cent to GDP.
SPAC chairman, Senator Aliyu Ahmed Wadada decried a situation where the solid minerals sector contributed less than one per cent to the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on yearly basis, describing it as ridiculous and unacceptable.
He noted that NEITI’s report on solid minerals was not reflective of what is going on in the solid minerals sector.
The committee queried why only states like Ogun, Osun, Kogi, Edo, Ebonyi, Rivers, Cross Rivers and FCT, were mentioned in the report leaving out Nasarawa, Zamfara, Kebbi, Plateau, Bauchi states and others.
