Number of oil firms owing FG dropped to 51 in 2020: NEITI

The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative said oil and gas companies’ liabilities to the Federation Accounts as of December 31, 2020, was N1.32 trillion.

Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, the Executive Secretary of NEITI, who spoke at the public presentation of reports on Oil, Gas and Mining as well as Fiscal Allocation and Statutory Disbursement, said the number of defaulting companies dropped from 77 in 2019 to 51 in 2020.

NEITI had in September 2021 declared that it will hand over information of about 77 oil and gas companies that owe N2.659 trillion of unpaid taxes to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

While providing highlights on the 2020 oil and gas reports, Mr Orji described the current debts as collectable revenues that were due to the federation accounts by the Nigeria Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS).

The latest report also outlined the specific revenue streams that accounted for the liabilities in question, which include royalty oil, royalty gas, concession rentals and petroleum profit tax.

Others include company income tax, value-added tax and withholding tax, among others.

Mr Orji said the report revealed that Nigeria earned $20.43 billion from the sector in 2020, adding that the figure represented a decline of 40 per cent compared to $34.22 billion realised in 2019.

“On remittances to the federation accounts from the sector, the report also disclosed that $14.65 billion, representing 71.17 per cent of total earnings in 2020 was remitted to the accounts.

“While total aggregate financial flows from the sector to the government in 10 years (2011-2020) was $394.029 billion,’’ he stated.

He also said that the total crude oil production in 2020 was 646.7 million barrels representing a 12 per cent decrease when compared to the 735.24 million barrels produced in 2019.

On fuel subsidy, he said the report further showed that N106.9 billion was paid as subsidy between January and June 2020 to sustain product availability with an outstanding balance of N26.74 billion yet to be paid.

(NAN)