The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation ( NNPC) on Thursday told the Senate that the rumour making the rounds over missing 48million barrels of crude oil is a fluke and total falsehood .

It challenged the Senate and by extension, the National Assembly, to go ahead with forensic audit on the outlandish claim at its own cost, if it so wishes just as it declared that the National Assembly approves the corporation budget on yearly basis .

The issues of alleged missing barrels of crude oil and unapproved yearly budget of the corporation, came up during an interactive session officials of NNPC had with the Senate Joint Committee on Finance and National  Planning on projected revenues estimated in the 2021 – 2023 Medium Term Expenditure Frame work and Fiscal Strategy Paper ( FSP).

The Chairman of the joint Committee, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola (APC Lagos West), had while taking on the oil corporation over the alleged missing barrels of oil, demanded for proven evidence and not verbal denial as it was done by NNPC through media advertorials .

But the Group Managing Director ( GMD), of NNPC, Mele Kyari represented by the Chief Finance Officer, Umar Ajiya, in his response, said there was no evidence to knock out the claim than the fact that there were no records of ships that sailed out of the Nigerian waters with such contrabands and clearance from the Nigerian Navy and Directorate of Petroleum and Resources ( DPR).
“No ship leaves the country without clearance from the appropriate unit of the Nigerian Navy and there is no way any ship with such alleged stolen crude could escape from the Nigeria shore .

“As far as the NNPC is concerned, no barrel of crude oil is missing as falsely alleged and we very ready to be investigated through forensic audit by the National Assembly at its own cost ” he said .

The NNPC CFO also put it to the federal lawmakers that the yearly budget of the corporation is scrutinised and approved by them through consideration and passage of MTEF and FSP which contains revenue projections of the agency along with those of the other ones .

“Proposals such as our revenue projections , cost of operations are well stated in all MTEF/FSP documents made available to National Assembly for consideration and approval , the basis upon which the Nation’s budget is passed and signed into law, meaning that it is you ( National Assembly), that approves our yearly budget ” , he explained.

According to him, the current GMD of NNPC is a change agent and the corporation under him, has nothing to hide.

He explained further that the $21per barrel production cost the corporation is incurring on each barrel of crude oil, will soon be reduced to $13 per barrel in drastically minimizing production cost .

On the $40 per barrel projected as oil price benchmark for the N12.6trillion 2021 budget, the NNPC CFO said the projection was arrived at, based on available variables .

“Nobody can determine what oil price will be tomorrow, which informs pessimistic thinking as far as such a parameter is concerned”, he said.