The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) says that total financial flows from Nigeria’s oil and gas sector reduced to 17.05 billion dollars in 2016, indicating a 31 per cent decline on the 24.79 billion dollars generated in 2015.

NEITI disclosed this in its 2016 Oil and Gas Audit Report released in Abuja on Friday.

The report revealed that the decline was a 75 per cent plunge on the sector’s peak earnings of 68.44 billion dollars generated in 2011.

It noted that the 2016 figure was the lowest in 10 years and the fifth lowest in the 18 years covered by NEITI’s audit reports from 1999 to 2016.

The report blamed the plunge in revenue in 2016 on the low oil prices in the global market and reduced oil production in Nigeria, which in turn was caused by disruption and vandalism of oil assets and spike in crude theft, among others.

It added that the yearly average price of crude oil per barrel stood at 43.73 dollars in 2016 as against 52.5 dollars in 2015.

It said that a total of oil production in 2016 was 659 million barrels as against 776 million barrels produced in 2015. This, it noted was a decline of 15 per cent.

“The Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas’ NLNG, dividend, loan and interest repayment for 2016 dipped by 63.5 per cent to $390.2 million, as against $1.07 billion recorded in 2015,’’ it added

On crude oil theft and sabotage, it revealed that the country lost about 101 million barrels of crude oil to theft and sabotage valued at 4.4 billion dollars.

“Of the total loss, Seplat Petroleum Development Company and Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, accounted for 81 million barrels of crude oil lost through sabotage, while 20 other oil companies recorded 19.8 million barrels lost to theft.”

“Losses due to crude oil theft and sabotage rose from 27 million barrels in 2015 to 101 million barrels in 2016, an increase of 274 per cent. This was aside losses due to deferment, which in 2016 was put at 144 million barrels which also went up by 65 per cent when compared to the 87.5 million barrels in 2015,” it said.

On cash calls and Joint Ventures (JV), the report said that 8.2 billion dollars was budgeted for cash calls in 2016, out of which 5.5 billion dollars was released and 4.9 billion dollars was paid.

It added that Non-Joint Venture, JV, cash call expenses came to 874 million dollars, representing 17.59 per cent of cash call expenditure.

It further revealed that the contribution of the oil and gas sector to Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) dropped from 9.5 per cent in 2015 to 8.3 per cent in 2016.

On gas production, it said that total gas produced in 2016 was 3.051 trillion Standard Cubic Feet (SCF) out of which 288.209 billion SCF was flared, representing 9.45 per cent of production.

“A total of 126 million barrels, valued at  5.48 billion  dollars or N1.37 trillion, was earmarked for domestic consumption, allocated as follows: 23 million barrels (18%) for refineries, 55.9 million barrels (45%) for Direct Sale Direct Purchase (DSDP), 36.6 million barrels (29%) for PPMC lifting and 10.4 million barrels (8%) for offshore processing.”

“From the money for domestic crude allocation (DCA), NNPC deducted the following upfront: N512 billion for JV cash call; N126.5 billion for pipeline repairs and maintenance; N99 billion for under-recovery and N20 billion for crude losses,” it said. (NAN)