The Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation (NNPC) is moving to recover over $7 billion in over-deducted tax benefits from joint venture partners on major capital projects.
Punch reports that the corporation had also engaged an international accounting firm to ascertain the exact amount due to government on the Strategic Alliance Contracts entered by Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), where up to $2.46 billion of government money would be recovered.
The Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Ibe Kachikwu, in a report submitted to President Muhammadu Buhari detailing the corporation’s successes so far, stated that the firm had commenced its performance measurement and benchmarking.
He added that the corporation had started what it described as value for money review of the NNPC and the JV companies covering the period of 2008 to 2013.
The Senior Special Assistant to President Buhari on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu also disclosed in a statement on Sunday that the NNPC report indicated that the new measures might lead to further cost recovery for the firm.
Shehu said, “Out of the reconciled amount, the sum of $277 million has been recovered in lieu of products and the recovery effort is still ongoing.”
Some of the international oil companies that are JV partners of the NNPC include Shell, Agip, Mobil, Chevron and Texaco.
Kachikwu said significant cost reductions were also expected to ensure that the corporation remained profitable in the prevailing low crude oil price regime.
He said NNPC is making progress to bring back the nation’s refineries to full production before end of 2015.
He said additional total savings of over $500 million would be made from the petrochemical products of the Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company annually.
According to Kachikwu, the NNPC’s efforts at re-positioning the NNPC has started yielding results.
He said, “Indeed, the report revealed that gas supply for power and peak generation have in recent times reached a historical high of 876 million standard cubic feet per day and 4,782 megawatts, respectively.”
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