The Federal Government proposes to establish reliable database to determine appropriate tariff methodology for transportation and bulk storage of crude oil and natural gas in the country.

The Authority Chief Executive (ACE) of the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), Mr. Farouk Ahmed, revealed this at the just-concluded 2022 Petroleum Liquid Inventory Reconciliation Exercise, which held from February 6 to February 10, in Lagos, South-West Nigeria.

A statement by the General Manager, Corporate Communications, NMDPRA, Kimchi Apollo, in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory (FCT), explained that the exercise involved the NMDPRA, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Crude Oil and Gas Export Companies, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), and the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI).

Represented by the NMDPRA Executive Director, Distribution Systems, Storage, Retailing Infrastructure (DSSRI), Mr. Ogbugo Ukoha, Ahmed said that the expanded data ecosystem would cover petroleum liquid volumes evacuated by trucking, barging and pipelines.

“It will include a data system on terminal receipt volumes and terminal stock records, crude oil inventory records per company, per terminal, quantities delivered to and received into refineries.

“It will also include quantities evacuated to other midstream storage facilities, export permit volumes as well as actual export volumes per company, per terminal,” he said.

On the reconciliation exercise, the NMDPRA boss said that it was scheduled to establish and authenticate a common data on midstream statistics relating to crude oil, condensates, natural gas and its derivatives.

He said that the reconciled data would provide the basis for the administration of petroleum liquid supply license and guide the appraisal of licenses, authorisations and approvals issued in the midstream sector relating to petroleum transportation, storage and exports.

“This reconciliation will be beneficial to our stakeholders, in that, the dataset will also be of interest for NEITI audit, OPEC (Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries) questionnaire and Joint Oil Data Initiative. It will also assist the National Assembly in its oversight function.

“Similarly, it can be used by security agencies for investigations and the Federal Ministry of Finance for monitoring the repatriation of export proceeds and royalties’ remittance by exporters of crude oil and natural gas,” he said.

Ahmed said the NMDPRA, as the custodian of petroleum products data bank, would continue to ensure the provision of credible, reliable data for all petroleum operations in the country.

The NMDPRA is mandated by the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 (PIA) to periodically reconcile data on crude oil terminal receipts, exports, refinery delivery, oil and gas transportation, and other related statistics that are of interest to the Federation as this directly affects royalties being remitted.