The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative on Tuesday announced that its ongoing independent audit of the oil and gas industry covering 2015 recorded 94 per cent compliance by companies and relevant government agencies.
According to the audit report, while 14 out of the 65 companies that participated in the exercise topped the ranking table with a maximum score of 100 per cent, 15 others scored between 51st and 62nd positions.
Two subsidiaries of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, namely: the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company and Crude Oil Marketing Division of the NNPC, as well as the Bureau of Public Enterprises, Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited, amongst others, were listed among the 15 firms in the 51st to 62nd positions.
Some of the 14 companies that topped the ranking table included Chevron Nigeria Limited, Consolidated, Continental, Eroton, Esso Exploration, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited and Niger Delta Petroleum Resources.
NEITI said 20 companies scored between 80 per cent and 88 per cent while 12 others recorded between 72 and 75 per cent.
The compliance ranking report further showed that only four companies, representing six per cent, failed to make submissions before the deadline.
The agency said the process that led to the compliance ranking began on May 2, 2017 when the audit templates were dispatched to affected companies and relevant government agencies.
It said during the ranking exercise, 65 covered entities, made of up 55 oil and gas companies and 10 relevant government agencies, participated.
“The 2015 independent oil and gas audit by NEITI is set out to examine payments made by companies including taxes, royalties, rents, signature bonuses where applicable and receipts by relevant government agencies,” it said.
It added that the audit would report on quantities of oil and gas produced, exported or imported, and noted that it would carry out validation of payments by companies against receipts by government agencies to determine if companies paid what they ought to pay and if government received what it should receive.
The agency said, “The criteria for the compliance ranking focused mainly on two major critical areas in the NEITI audit value chain. These are timeliness and completeness in submission of information and data requested by NEITI in the audit templates.
“While timeliness measured when the covered entities submitted the templates, the completeness considered how many of the applicable templates were submitted.”
Speaking on the ranking exercise, the NEITI’s Executive Secretary, Mr. Waziri Adio, said, “We decided to rank companies and government agencies covered by the NEITI audit process so as to incentivise timely and complete compliance.”
