Dr. Kachikwu said that essence of the initiatives was to be able to track crude oil productions and vessels on the onshore and offshore of the country’s water ways.
“One of the key areas of focus was issue of transparency; how do we ensure that we are transparent in our operations, how do we ensure that we have speed to get approval for licenses that previously will take forever.
“We have also had the COLT which is basically tracking of crude oil and LNG. It is just not enough to produce, but to know where it is going to. As you know, some of our problems is both accounting for production and what happened to crude oil produced,’’ the Minister added.
Kachikwu said that what COLT does for Nigeria was to be able track any of these vessels be it LNG or crude and track where it is going, adding that Nigeria can also track those vessels to the point of discharge.
He said that today, the agency have been able to track production, track the movement of that production, following these initiatives had launched series of IT based platforms and interventions which had Nigerians into the next foray of how oil companies and oil operations in this country should run.
According to him, the few interventions that have been put in place includes the National Production Monitoring System (NPMS) with a focus of gathering data online. “All our fields are largely tracked online now and what it means is that we can actually feed the nation on what was our actual production and from which fields and what is the volume and also identify if there are leakages.
He spoke on the Accelerated Lease Renewal Program (ALRP) that was put in place in 2015 for the purpose of creating revenue for the government, “We reviewed the fees payable for renewals by 50-100 per cent, and we are able to renew quite a number of fields.
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It is expected that a huge amount would have been generated in terms of renewals by the time the process is concluded.
The Minister took time to address royalty indebtedness recovery which is largely pushed by the Presidency.
“The process of determining royalty in the past was largely driven by initiatives of oil companies that determine what they produce and we calculate the royalty based on their own figure. “But now, we have been able to use the system we have now to see what the actual productions are,’’ he said.
He said: under the rule, you do not get your renewals unless the outstanding royalties are paid. For those that have shown the seriousness and mapped out how they intend to settle their indebtedness, we will review, but we will not give out the final certificate until you have settled and this has generated about N2 trillion so far as a result of this royalty recovery scheme.
“It is one thing to set these policies, it is another to have the agency in charge to work assiduously within the time you set for them and achieve results. I congratulate Director of DPR and his team.
In his remarks, Mr Mordecai Ladan, the Director of DPR lauded the minister’s support towards rebranding and reshaping the agency in ensuring improved services delivery in the oil and gas sector.
According to Ladan “The minister has been involved in these projects, so we call him to come and engage the media in showcasing some milestones that have been achieved by the regulatory agency of the petroleum ministry.
“As you have heard, several milestones have been scored by this agency, we have had instances for which we showcase some of them but there are others that the minister has been very impressive with, we decided to bring the minster here to discuss these milestones with the media.
`Showcasing some of the aspirations of this government since inception and since the period he has become the minister, he has challenged us and we equally have been challenged and in tackling the challenges.
