Nigeria Owes Oil Firms $5.1bn – NNPC

• Nigeria Owes Oil Firms $5.1bn – NNPC

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation on Thursday said Nigeria owed international oil companies $5.1bn in the Joint Venture Cash Call business arrangement it had with them.

The corporation’s Chief Financial Officer, Alhaji Isiaka Abdulrasaq, disclosed this in a presentation to the Senate Committee on Gas on how the JVC was being run.

Abdulrazaq described the JVC as a business arrangement between the Federal Government and the IOCs.

He said while Nigeria controlled 60 per cent of the business venture, the IOCs controlled 40 per cent.

He explained, “The problem, however, is that before this government came on board in 2015, Nigeria which holds 60 per cent of shares in the joint business, for many years did not contribute its own required capital into it but was only collecting its equity in form of revenues.

“This made the country to, as at 2015, have $6.8bn unpaid capital into the venture.

“But the present government in 2016 succeeded in getting 35 per cent discount from the unpaid capital amounting to $1.9bn, making the country to owe the IOCs $5.1bn now.”

Abdulrazaq also said there was no mismanagement or stealing from the alleged $3.2bn withdrawn from the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas account from 2015 to date.

He said the firm’s record showed that only 13 withdrawals were made from the account.

He put the figure at $1.2bn.

The chairman of the committee, Senator Albert Akpan, from Akwa Ibom North East, however, asked Abdulrazaq to submit approving documents for all the withdrawals by Tuesday.

He said, “We are not saying any money has been stolen.

“What we are doing is clarifying processes of expenditures made from the account with a view to making management of the account more transparent and beneficial to Nigerians.”