. Nigeria lost N4.64trn in 10 years
. NNPC pocketed N86.6bn
A leaked report of the Ribadu-led petroleum revenues task force says Nigeria lost about N4.64 trillion over the last decade from cut-price deals struck between multinational oil companies and government officials. Former EFCC chairman Nuhu Ribadu headed the Petroleum Revenue Special Task Force, set up by Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke in January to retrieve outstanding oil revenues payable to the Federal Government.
Reuters news agency reported yesterday that the committee produced a 146-page report covering the period 2002 to the present, providing new details on long history of corruption in the oil sector.
Alison-Madueke told Reuters on Tuesday she had received the report last month but that it was a draft and the government was still supposed to give input. The one seen by Reuters was labelled "Final Report."
The report concluded that oil majors Shell, Total and Eni made bumper profits from cut-price gas, while petroleum ministers handed out licences at their own discretion. This, while not illegal, did not follow best practice of using open bids. Hundreds of millions of dollars in signature bonuses on those deals were also missing, it said.
It said also the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) made N86.6 billion over the 10-year period by using overly generous exchange rates in its declarations to the government. There was no sign of the money.
"We have not seen this report and are, therefore, unable to comment on the content, but we will study it if and when it is published," a Shell spokesman told Reuters.
Shell spokesman Precious Okolobo did not answer calls by a Daily Trust reporter yesterday and did not reply to text messages.
Spokesman for Total, Charles Eberionwu, told Daily Trust that he would not comment on a report that is not yet published or approved by government.
For his part, ENI spokesman Tajuddeen Adigun said he did not understand what
the report is talking about and he needed to have details before he could make any comments.
When Daily Trust contacted NNPC spokesman Fidel I. Pepple, he said the petroleum minister has already addressed the issues in the report and therefore he had nothing to add.
Trillions missing
The report alleges international oil traders sometimes buy crude without any formal contracts, and NNPC had short-changed the Federation Account billions over the last 10 years by selling crude oil and gas to itself below market rates.
There was no suggestion that the oil majors or traders had done anything illegal, but the report highlighted a lack of transparency in their dealings in a nation rife with graft.
"It is a draft," Alison-Madueke said. "There will be some areas where the government ... may have a slightly different opinion ... (and) will put its point of view to the committee."
She said she expects the final report to be with President Goodluck Jonathan within two weeks. Ribadu's probe was among several set up following a week of nationwide strikes against a rise in fuel prices in January, which morphed into a campaign against oil corruption.
Billions of dollars of revenue was missing in unpaid debts from signature bonuses and royalties, the report found. Nigeria LNG, a company jointly owned by the NNPC, Shell, Total and Eni had paid the country for gas at cut-down prices before exporting it to international markets, the report said.
Total and Eni declined to comment because they invest in but do not operate Nigeria LNG, the role played by Shell.
"The estimated cumulative of the deficit between value obtainable on the international market and what is currently being obtained from NLNG, over the 10 year period, amounts to approximately $29 billion (N4.64 trillion)," the report said.
It also said foreign oil firms had outstanding debts.
Addax, now a unit of China's state-owned Sinopec, owes Nigeria about N240 billion in unpaid royalties, part of a N480 billion black hole of unpaid bonuses and royalties owed by oil firms.
Addax did not respond to Reuters requests for comment, but the report noted it disputes owing the signature bonuses.
Shell owes the Federal Government N137.57 billion for gas sold from its Bonga deep offshore field, the report said, while oil majors owed $58 million between them for gas flaring penalties. They were also not adhering to newer higher fines.
The probe also said Nigeria was the only nation to sell all its crude through international oil traders rather than directly to refineries, adding that such trades were often opaque.
It said some international oil traders who were not "on the approved master list of customers" had been sold crude oil "without a formal contract" so little could be obtained about the details of these deals, which can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
"This logically will serve to reduce margins obtainable on sale of crude oil," the report said.
But Alison-Madueke disputed this, saying there are no informal contracts and there is "an official tender put out every year", which can be seen by the public in newspapers.
NNPC gets an allocation of 445,000 bpd of crude oil to refine locally but it has been selling itself this oil at cut-down prices, a practice which cost Nigeria $5 billion in potential revenue between 2002-2011, the report said.
"NNPC buys at international rates," Alison-Madueke retorted.
Petroleum ministers between 2008 and 2011 handed out seven discretionary licences but there is $183 million (N29 billion) in signature bonuses missing from the deals, the report said.
Three of these oil licences were awarded since Alison-Madueke took up her position in 2010, according to the report.
"I have not given any discretionary awards during this administration," Alison-Madueke told Reuters, although she added that the president had the right to do so instead of using bids if he saw fit. "That is entirely up to him," she said.
Among the report's recommendations were that parts of NNPC be reorganised or scrapped, an independent review of the use of traders be set up and a transparency law be passed requiring oil companies to disclose all payments made to Nigeria.
'Report not for public yet'
Last night, the Petroleum Ministry released what it said were excerpts of the minister's interview with Reuters on the Ribadu report.
"The report is not normally put in the public domain until the government's complete report is finalised," she said.
"What normally happens when you set up a committee is that when the committee hands in its report, a team is put together by the arm of government or agency that set up the committee in the first place. That has already happened.
"That team consists of people with relevant experience in the area. So, it is not just about the Revenue Task Force. The Revenue Task Force handed in its report sometime in September. But there were also the Governance and Control and the Refineries Task Forces which have all sent in their draft reports.
"We have set up a team that is looking at them across the board to see if there is a difference in opinion or a difference in perspective. This team will complete its work and submit a comprehensive report in the next 10 days. It is only after then that government will talk about implementation and the issues that you mentioned will be addressed.
"Government will decide on where to draw the line on any issue that is not in conformity with its policies. And some of the points you have raised are, in fact, not as they have been presented. I am very careful not to comment on the report until it has been finalized. There are areas that have already been handled by these committees because they are not the way they were presented."
Daily Trust
What will cause it too would be corruption.We need to flush Nigeria's system thoroughly
I think this man called Ribadu is worthy of his post.He is working efficiently