Every barrel of crude oil produced and exported out of Nigeria is now being tracked by the Federal Government in collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, declared on Tuesday.
Kachikwu said the government and the EFCC recently commenced the tracking of vessels lifting crude oil from Nigeria.
He spoke at the ongoing Nigeria International Petroleum Summit in Abuja while responding to a comment made by a delegate at the summit.
The minister said: “Now let’s take the tracking that he mentioned.
“Today, for the first time, whatever you are producing in this country, as per when it is being produced – barrel for barrel, we can tell. We can also tell where it is going to for the purpose of discharge.
“So, one of the things that they (Department of Petroleum Resources) have been able to set up, which they are finalising now, is a forensic analysis that shows you things. We can see every vessel for the first time that comes in into Nigeria. We can see their activities.”
Kachikwu added, “I remember when they were presenting this to me about a month ago, one of the things that was exciting was seeing a couple of vessels that were doing some run around in Nigeria.
“They (vessels) go to a location to pick a million barrels, then they go somewhere else, then they come back to the location when they should be heading to Port Novo or the United States.
So, one of the things we are trying to do with the EFCC is to be able to gather these data month-by-month and say let’s track these particular vessels; who are the owners, why did they make this stop, what happened when they went there?”
He said the government, through the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources, would also extend the tracking to the downstream sector.