Lagos — Zero Corruption coalition (ZCC) in collaboration with USAID has called on the Federal Government to mandate the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to work together with other operators in the oil and gas industry to develop standards and guidelines for the routine reporting of a gross liquids and hydrocarbons mass balance.

The group emphasised that from the 2005 Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) Audit report, the amount of oil produced at the wellhead is not reliably known as DPR has no system for measuring production, other than through monitoring terminal receipts; it therefore called on the Federal Government to ensure a policy framework and implementation plan is put in place to check leakages in system.

ZCC in a statement said: "From the NEITI 2005 Audit report, DPR has no data from which possible product losses between the production point and the terminal can be estimated, measured or inferred and so should be mandated by the Federal Government to work together with operators in the oil and gas industry to develop standards and guidelines for the reporting of gross liquids and hydrocarbons mass balance.

"DPR should report to Government regularly on all hydrocarbon flows and holders of oil mineral licences (OMLs) and oil prospecting licences (OPLs) and any transfers of working interests thereon."

The anti-corruption group said since Government systems that give the responsibility of physical production of petroleum products to be separated from the responsibility for financial management, the gap has led to unreconciled differences between the two because the institutions were not effectively sharing data.

"Given the fact that the validity of the financial data is dependent on the technical data, there is a basic need for government, the regulators and the industry to take a holistic view of the industry and to ensure good lines of communication and sharing of information between the different parties in the industry, whether government bodies or private companies. Financial and physical data should be routinely reconciled," the group insisted.

The group, however, said: "There is urgent need to undertake a review of Government information systems, including pending systems development programmes, to ensure that information if available to those who require it since from the report, the use of suitable, secure IT systems to provide consistent data to various users and to analyse this data was limited or nonexistent for the period under review."