The Department of Petroleum Resources has accused International Oil Companies of frustrating the efforts of the Federal Government to monitor and measure the amount of gas produced at every given time.
The Deputy Director, Technical Services, DPR, Mr. DozieIrrechukwu, said this during a meeting with the Senate Committee on Gas Resources on Monday.
The Department of Petroleum Resources has accused International Oil Companies of frustrating the efforts of the Federal Government to monitor and measure the amount of gas produced at every given time.
The Deputy Director, Technical Services, DPR, Mr. DozieIrrechukwu, said this during a meeting with the Senate Committee on Gas Resources on Monday.
Curiously, the DPR official and the contractor that is supposed to install the measuring device, Riverman Technologies Limited, could not tell the committee the actual value of the contract, but instead pleaded to be allowed to cross-check the details and return at a later date.
The Managing Director, Riverman Technologies, Mr. Kingsley Itoro, however, said the company was being owed about N1bn in outstanding payments.
Irrechukwu told the committee that efforts to instal the equipment for the real time monitoring of gas production and utilisation of gas had been impeded by the IOCs.
According to him, the Gas Real Time Measurement, an electronic device, was to be installed at the production sites to measure gas and that the contract was awarded in 2009, but had only attained 8.3 per cent completion rate ever since.
“The IOCs, including Shell Petroleum Development Company, Chevron and Mobil are using some techniques to slow down the installation of the real time units that would give accurate measurement of gas production and utilisation,” he said.
Irrechukwu explained that the companies would need to shut down operations to allow the contractor to survey and design the appropriate technology to be used, but noted that they were not willing to do that.
The DPR official informed the committee that the IOCs were, instead, using manual measurement, which could not measure the actual volume off gas being produced or utilised.
Although members of the committee said the project had failed, Irrechukwu disagreed, saying that some of the equipment had been installed, except for the real time units.
Itoro, on his part, told the committee about his company’s frustrations while trying to execute the project at the gas production sites.
He said several efforts to access the facilities of the IOCs had met a brick wall.
However, the Chairman of the committee, Senator Nkechi Nwaogu, chided the DPR for failing to ensure that the contract was executed.
She said the department was not performing its policing role in the oil and gas industry effectively, even though the separation of oil and gas was to generate more revenue for the government.
She lamented that of the 166 terminals that required real time measuring equipment, only 10 or 8.3 per cent had been completed.
Nwaogu said, “Gas production in Nigeria has been played down to the detriment of revenue derivable from it. How do you know the quantity of gas being produced and utilised without real-time monitoring?
“We know we have more gas in Nigeria than oil and in every exploration, gas is utilised.”
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