
FG Receives N817bn From Total, Chevron, CNOOC In One Year
THE Federal Government received $2.68 billion, about N817.4 billion, from Total, Chevron and China National Offshore Oil Company, CNOOC, in 2017, according to documents obtained from the Canadian government. The companies presented the information under Canada’s extractive industry law which required extractive entities active in Canada to publicly disclose, on an annual basis, specific payments made to all governments in Canada and abroad.
Giving a breakdown of the payments which was made to the various agencies of government, the report which was compiled in 2018, noted that Total made total payments of $1.2 billion to the Nigerian government; Chevron made total payments of $1.4 billion, while CNOOC paid the country $586.7 million. Reporting under the law, Total said it paid $614.8 million in taxes; $2.7 million in licensing fees; $46.2 million in infrastructure improvements, mainly to the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC; and $488.5 million for production entitlements.
Chevron on the other hand, paid $5.4 million, under the Nigerian Export Supervision Scheme, NESS; it paid $18.3 million $101.24 million as fees to the Nigerian Content Development Management Board, NCDMB and Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC respectively. Chevron also paid $275.9 million and $2.4 million to the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, for royalties and fees respectively, while it paid $1 billion in taxes to the Federal Inland Revenue Services, FIRS.
Further breakdown showed that Chevron paid $214.8 million and $78.9 to the Federal Government for Niger Delta Concessions; while it paid $817.3 million and $48.4 million for its Oil Mining Leases, OML, 127 and 128. In addition, CNOOC paid the FIRS $75.7 million; while $1.43 million was paid to the Kaduna State Government under the heading Infrastructure Improvement Payments. CNOOC also made payments to NDDC, NESS and NIPEX, totaling 282.91 million, 2.84 million and 1.27 million Canadian dollars respectively; while the NNPC received 222.64 million and 20,000 for royalties and fees respectively. Further breakdown revealed that CNOOC made total payments of 266.87 million Canadian dollars for OML 138; 0.92 million, 30,000 and 317.52 million Canadian dollars for OML 139, OPL 223 and OML 130.
Total, had in its report to the authorities stated that in Nigeria, its production, primarily offshore, was 267,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, BOE/D in 2017, compared to 243,000 BOE/D in 2016 and 245,000 BOE/D in 2015. The company, which recently concluded the Egina Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading project, awaiting deployment, said the recent increase in production is due to the development of Ofon phase 2, OML 102, and improved production from the licenses held by the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) joint venture following the negative impact of difficult operational security conditions in the Niger delta in 2016.
Total said it operates five production licenses (OML) on the 34 leases in which the Group has interests, including two exploration licenses. The report said, “Total has offshore operations, which production was 172,000 BOE/D in 2017, notably on the following leases: on OML 139 (18%), the Owowo-3 exploration well, drilled in 2016, confirmed the discovery of oil made in 2012 and enabled progress in the preparation of the development plan. “The discovery is located near OML 138 (20%), where three oil discoveries were made in 2014 and 2015 and where the field Usan is producing; on OML 130 (24%, operator), the development of the Egina field (200 kboe/d capacity) launched in 2013 is underway and production is expected to start in 2018.
“The Preowei field was assessed in 2017 and should enable the finalization of the studies for a satellite development of Egina; on OML 102 (40%, operator), the drilling of the 24 additional wells (Ofon, phase 2) on the Ofon oil fields is on progress and should be completed in 2018; – on OML 99 (40%, operator), studies are ongoing for the development of the Ikike field; and – on OML 118 (12.5%), the Bonga field contributed 17,000 boe/d to the Group’s production in 2017. Optimization studies of the Bonga South West Aparo project (10 per cent unitized) are ongoing.
Source: VANGUARD