To better assess oil production in Nigeria, Publish-What-You-Pay Nigeria, PWYP, has asked the regulatory authorities to install meters at the country’s oil well heads.
For long, Nigeria has faced the challenge of knowing the volume of oil it produces daily, as a result of lack of consensus on where the operating companies should install metering infrastructure.
While some operators prefer the equipment at the well-heads in oil fields, the multi-national oil companies mostly want the meters at the oil tank farms and export terminals.
The oil companies argue that oil collected at the production fields were often mixed with water, sand and other residual matters that would make it difficult to determine the volume of oil there.
Besides, they hold that measuring at the oil terminals would save them huge losses from the high incidence of pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft in the Niger Delta region
“The system and institutions in place for extractive sector exploration, production, control and monitoring purposes in Nigeria have proven to be inadequate, ineffective and porous, resulting in preventable leakages and revenue losses to the country,” they said.
