N6trn revenue leakages: Reps tackle Shell over $157.5m royalty

By Joshua Egbodo

Abuja

The House of Representatives ad – hoc committee investigating alleged oil and gas revenue leakages between 2016 and 2017 yesterday tackled the management of Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), over what it described as “willful violation of Nigerian regulatory guidelines”, by failing to pay royalties of $157.5 million.
Information made available to the Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe-led committee by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) showed that SPDC has failed to pay an outstanding revenue of $157,53,298, owed since 2000 on gas sales, due to the federation account.
Angered by the apparent refusal of the company’s General Manager in charge of Government Relations, Mr. Bashir Bello to effectively provide answers to some of their questions, members of the panel told SPDC that it cannot be a government within the government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Bello told the panel that “we were asked to bring details on unitised fields which we are exploring in a joint venture with the NNPC and the prove of reconciled payments to the DPR which we have brought”, and gas sales which the DPR is accusing Shell of witholding royalty, he said “We haven’t seen the data from DPR to confirm whether the outstanding is actually there or not”.
“On the applicability of paying royalty on gas sale, the company would want to know the details of where the discrepancies are coming from, relying on information from the DPR”, he stated
The the panel however reminded the company’s representative that there was a meeting which held on May 19, 2017 where Shell acknowledged the need to reconcile data regarding its oustanding payments but has failed to see it through.
Also examining the documents, Jarigbe said the submission was done late and as such cannot be studied by members for any informed inputs, adding that other issues raised by the DPR must be treated in whatever reconciliation that needed to be done, noting further that there is a pending royalty sum of $20,468,660 of which nothing has been recovered, and another $54,683.62 on gas sale royalty, as well as $74,667 owed on gas flare penalty.

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