The Nigerian Extractives Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has said that the country earned $741.48 billion from the oil and gas sector between 1999 and 2020.
During the Multi-stakeholders’ Roundtable on the approval of the NEITI 2021 Oil, Gas, and Mining Industry Reports held at NEITI House in Abuja on August 16, the Executive Secretary, Dr. Ogbonnaya Orji said the country earned $741.48 billion from oil and gas between 1999 and 2020.
He said:
- “NEITI has conducted a total of thirteen cycles of reconciliatory reports in the oil and gas sector and eleven cycles of reports in the solid minerals sector.
- “These reports have disclosed total revenue earnings to the government of $741.48 billion from the oil and gas sector and N635.3 billion from the solid mineral sector. These earnings were between the years 1999-2020 (Oil and gas) and 2006-2020 (Solid minerals sector earnings).”
During the event, Dr. Orji also said that the stakeholders’ roundtable was organized to carry all stakeholders along and get the report approved.
He stated further that following extensive consultation with the international secretariat, NEITI got a waiver for Companies, Civil Society, Media, and Government representatives to review and approve the reports to be released.
He said:
- “This is not the first time we are adopting this approach. Recall that a similar decision was made on the 2019 Industry Reports immediately after I assumed office. The global EITI gave Nigeria a waiver and approved that NEITI should convene a multi-stakeholder roundtable to review and approve the 2019 industry reports.”
Fuel subsidy context
According to Dr. Orji, NEITI reported subsidy payments on petroleum products from the years 2005 to 2021 and their huge negative consequences to the nation. He highlighted the fact that Nigeria has spent $74.39 billion which translates to 13.7 trillion in Naira.
By the above figures, Nigeria expended an average of N805.7 billion annually, 67.1 billion monthly, or N2.2 billion daily.
What you should know: In April 2023, under the leadership of former president, Muhammadu Buhari, NEITI announced that Nigeria lost 619.7 million barrels of crude between 2009 and 2020.
At the time, Dr. Orji said:
- “The NEITI policy brief on crude oil theft and data pulled from NEITI industry reports of the oil and gas sector showed that between 2009 and 2020 (a 12-year period), Nigeria lost 619.7 million barrels of crude oil valued at $46.16 billion or N16.25 trillion. The volume of crude oil losses represents a loss of more than 140 thousand barrels per day.
- “Between 2009 and 2018, Nigeria also lost 4.2 billion litres of petroleum products from refineries valued at $1.84 billion. These findings and recommendations on tackling crude oil theft have been submitted to the President through the Presidential Committee on Crude Oil Theft in which NEITI also served as a member.”