Vice Chairman, Senate Committee on Women Affairs Senator Stella Oduah, has called for introduction of application that can serve as metering system to enable Nigerians to know the country’s exact daily oil production.
According to him, the metering facility would ensure blockage of leakages in the petroleum industry.
While expressing displeasure over NNPC’s inability to procure the device to adequately keep inventory of oil production in the country, many decades after it commenced, Oduah said “it is shameful that several decades after oil was discovered in the country, it has yet to get a proper metering system”.
“Given the fact that crude is the mainstay of the economy, it is important to get adequate metering system to ensure accountability.
“I think it is a problem we should be ashamed to be discussing because in my view, they are problems that NNPC with all sense of sincerity, can easily resolve.
“I was employed in NNPC in 1983 and I was a member of a committee for commercialisation and reconstruction of NNPC at that time.
“The major issue we discussed, investigated and came up with solution to, was on how to ensure that we have adequate measurement of crude by having metering system in all the terminals.
“But, why is that still an issue to be discussed several years after?
“How do you not put in equipment that will give you accurate measurement of your product and this is the product that forms the basis of our budgeting?
“This is the crux of everything we do in this nation and every year, for the past 30 years and more, we are still talking about measurement as an issue.
“Even if we want to mirror it against any of the oil producing nation like U.S., UAE and others, it is just a simple problem,’’ she said.
The Anambra Senator averred that “NNPC should be sincere to tell us why they are reluctant, and if not for interest, why will you not want to have proper measuring equipment on your terminals”.
While querying “How much are the equipment? For me, it is upsetting,”, she explained that the equipment would enable Nigerians to know the flow of crude, “the quantity being exported, from which pipeline, where it is being loaded to and the volume loaded.”
