We paid FG $44bn in five years – Shell

Managing Director of Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), Mr. Mutiu Sunmonu

The Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited has said it contributed about $44bn to the Federal Government’s coffers between 2009 and 2013.

According to the company, the Federal Government also received about 95 per cent of the revenue after costs from the SPDC Joint Venture, including income from its majority shareholding through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

The oil major also stated that the Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company of Nigeria Limited, which operates in deep waters, also contributed in excess of $26bn to the government within the five-year period.

Addressing journalists on the company’s activities as of April 2014, the Country Chair, Shell Nigeria, Mr. Mutiu Sunmonu, said in 2013 alone, Shell-operated ventures in the country produced an average of 693,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

About 535,000boe/d of the volume, he explained, came from SPDC JV, while SNEPCo accounted for the balance of 158,000boe/d.

As part of measures to check oil theft, he said the company had given out 600 surveillance contracts to protect its over 6,000-kilometre pipeline network, with about 9,000 people employed for that purpose.

Sunmonu, however, said that the deployment of appropriate technologies was not a sufficient requirement in addressing pipeline vandalism and oil theft, adding that an effective response arrangement by the Joint Task Force remained critical to checking the menace.

He called on the Federal Government to take more seriously the issue of security, especially as it related to oil and gas assets in the country.

On gas flaring, he said the SPDC had reduced the incidence from its facilities by about 75 per cent between 2003 and 2012, and that flaring intensity (the amount of gas flared per barrel of oil produced) had been brought down by around 60 per cent over the same period.