Fresh facts have emerged on the dirty undercurrents in the export of crude oil in the Upstream sector at a colossal loss in taxes to the Federal Government by a Nigerian company Matrix Energy Group which has strong ties with top guns in the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC).
Investigations which were corroborated by documents detailed how Nigeria had been losing taxes and sundry revenues through the sale of crude by the privileged company, Matrix Energy Group, run by one Abdulkabir Adisa Aliu as the Founder/CEO.
Aliu who has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Ilorin, is a member of the Presidential Economic Coordination Council (PECC) and is known to be one of the closest persons to the NNPC management; and has leveraged this relationship to get allocation of crude cargoes from NNPC Limited.
Documents seen by our reporter showed details of crude cargoes allocated to Matrix/GTT (May – Sep, 2024).
Documents showed that about 4 crude cargoes per month are allocated to Matrix Energy by NNPC and to avoid paying taxes in Nigeria, the crude allocations to Matrix are traded by Gulf Transport & Trading (GTT), a trading company registered in the UAE.
Two of the three crude cargoes of the recently launched Utapate grade were allocated to GTT.
Documents revealed that the crude cargoes sold at a $3 per barrel premium which translates to revenue of $3 million, amounting to a tax-free profit of almost $150 million per year or N240 billion (@N1,600). This is the amount that Nigeria would have earned tax revenue from but the reverse is the case as Matrix Energy in connivance with top persons at NNPC Limited routed the sales through a UAE-registered company, GTT.
Matrix also has three marginal field prospecting licences according to their website and has been deeply involved in the messy downstream sector where details of its active importation of low quality refined petrochemicals from Malta and Russia have been exposed in documents seen by our reporter.
Details of Matrix Group connivance with NNPC to import low quality fuel into Nigeria will form Part Two of this story which confirms assertions by some Nigerians that NNPC is importing sub-standard products into the country with the knowledge of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA). Watch out for it.
SOURCE: TheCapital
