Oluwasina Phillip
The Department of Petroleum Resources on Friday debunked claims that the exact volume of crude oil produced in the country was not known.
The statement comes after the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative said that the volume of crude oil produced in Nigeria, especially at the deep offshore fields, was not known by anyone.
The Executive Secretary, NEITI, Orji Ogbonnaya-Orji, had said that lack of meters at wellheads and the lack of capacity to monitor deep offshore fields have made it difficult to have actual records of crude production.
But the Head of Public Affairs, DPR, Paul Osu, in a statement on Friday said every litre of crude produced in the country was adequately captured during the process of extraction.
Osu said it was the responsibility of the DPR to monitor and account for crude oil production as basis for determining government’s revenue through royalty payments by operators for sustainable development.
He said, “As a further step to boosting crude accounting process from production to export, DPR recently launched the National Production Monitoring System.
“NPMS is an online platform for direct and independent acquisition of production data from oil and gas facilities in Nigeria.
“NPMS as an electronic data transmission tool at production and export terminals is designed to better predict the performance of oil and gas reservoirs and better production forecasting
According to him, the NPMS tool enables DPR to exercise surveillance, perform production monitoring and data analysis for utilisation and forecasting.
Osu noted that the DPR as a business enabler and opportunity house would continue to develop robust and strategic initiatives to ensure timely and accurate payment of rents, royalties and other revenues due to the government.