Kachikwu Commends DPR for Digitalising Crude Oil Accounting
Ejiofor Alike
The Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has commended the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) for achieving digital technological breakthrough in crude oil accounting through the deployment of the National Production Monitoring System (NPMS) platform.
Speaking during a working visit to the regulatory agency, the minister lauded the foresight and leadership of DPR Director, Mr. Mordeccai Ladan in setting up the NPMS platform to track crude oil production real-time, thereby dispelling the allegations that Nigeria does not know how much crude oil it produces and export.
NPMS system is set up to achieve a robust data bank for timely information and easy retrieval, improved transparency in hydrocarbon accounting, improved revenue generated from hydrocarbon production and export, aaccurate hydrocarbon data monitoring and consistent high-quality data publication.
The minister noted that all major stakeholders, including the presidency and the National Assembly would have access to the platform real time to enable alignment of production figures by all stakeholders.
He also commended the DPR for its efficiency and timeliness in the discharge of its regulatory functions especially in the last three years.
The NPMS is linked to the 26 export terminals nationwide and the platform provides a field operators portal for submission of production figures by operators.
The platform also provides an export facility portal which enables DPR staff embedded at the terminals in line with the agency’s regulatory oversight responsibility to submit terminal reports of crude stored in the facility and generate certificate of quantity for export clearance.
NPMS real time technology further allows DPR to carry out independent comparative analysis of submitted production figures without operators’ interference.
Kachikwu’s visit was to review the performance of the DPR on the last three years with critical focus on improving internally generated revenue for the federal government, reduction of crude oil production cost per barrel, staffing issues, bid rounds, and Petroleum Industry governance bill (PIGB), among others.
Responding to a detailed presentation by the agency, the minister reassured the inhouse union representatives of job security and increased opportunities for capacity development.
The minister also visited the National Data Repository (NDR) centre in DPR and promised to provide all necessary assistance to DPR for all its digital initiatives and regulatory programmes.
The NDR is a data base that seeks to preserve and promote Nigeria exploration and production of data, such as seismic well logs.
It is also the entity that governs, controls and supports data trade/ exchange, leasing/ prying, research and dissemination of exploration and production information.