By Moses Patience Chat
The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) at the weekend said it has introduced a new measurement regulation draft to help reduce oil loss coming from inaccurate measurements and leakages.
This was disclosed by the Commission Chief Executive of NUPRC, Mr. Gbenga Komolafe, to news men during an interview on Sunday.
According to him, leakages experienced during measurement are responsible for the low turnout in optimal revenue and must be mitigated for sustained increase in production quota and revenue.
He further explained that a process of curbing the measurement issues has been put in place after forensic data provided by experts revealed a 40 per cent loss from inaccurate measurements.
Komolafe also narrated that “in the process of doing this we set up an expert committee of consultants and the commission to, actually, try to establish forensically the volume of crude oil losses just for over a period of two years – 2020 to 2022.
“And that, again, arose from the background of the conflicting figures that were being bandied around. We felt dutybound owing to our statutory responsibility under the Act to avail the public with the actual figure of crude oil losses as a responsible regulator.
“For us, it is not mere statistics. We set out to establish that and by the time the report was presented, we found it very shocking that 39.9 percent which is roughly 40 per cent of the adjudged losses were attributable to measurement inaccuracies (MI).
“When we looked at that figure, it further reinforces one of our regulatory areas of focus that there is need to strengthen transparency in our hydrocarbon accounting because 40 per cent is staggering.
“As we speak, we have put in place a draft of measurement regulation that is in the process of being gazetted; it has passed through the regulation-making process as prescribed in the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). By the time we begin to implement the measurement regulation seamlessly, the net effect is that we will be able to reduce that number (40 per cent MI) to what we call industry allowable errors in the best practice.”
The NUPRC Boss also stated that operators are responsible for providing the metering devices since 1958, and that they as a regulatory body accept whatever figures are displayed, but that this however was about to change.
In his own words, “metering commenced from 1958 and it has been the operators that have been providing the metering devices. What our past experience as an oil producing nation has been is that we accept the figures from the operators’ device the way they display it to us. The regulatory position that we have impacted upon is aimed at reversing this trend in a manner that these operators and licensees will no longer be a judge in their own case.
“It is a fundamental principle of justice that they cannot continue to be a judge in their own case. That is not transparent. That is the trust and philosophy behind the measurement regulation and I have been able to explain to the operators that it is not in the interest of transparency that this should continue.
“We are going to work the measurement regulation, which will become effective in the weeks ahead.”
