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The Nigerian government has approved N17 billion for installation of technology for tracking and monitoring petroleum products under the Petroleum Equalization Fund (PEF).
The approval by the country’s Federal Executive Council (FEC) was revealed today in Abuja by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu while briefing the media. The FEC was presided over by the Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo in Abuja.
Kachikwu said the deployment of the automated fuel system management and censor network would ensure 100 per cent tracking and monitoring of petroleum products that would save the country billions of dollars.
According to Kachikwu, the technology will also allow the country, for the first time, to be able to know the exact quantity of petroleum products consumed internally. His words:
“The narrative is that we have all struggled with this whole subsidy payment; how much is consumed in Nigeria; volumes of products moved out illegally and the whole impact on Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC). “The president has given a very serious mandate that we ought to rein in on this process.
“The essence of what PEF is doing is that this will enable us track refined petroleum products movement from the point of LC (letter of credit) opening from the vessels that come into Nigeria, up until the point where there are discharged into tanks in Nigeria. “It will monitor from the tanks to trucks in Nigeria; monitor the trucks till they deliver the products into the storage tanks for the filling stations and they are discharged and sold. “So, that will produce a 100 per cent holistic monitoring of this production.’’
Nigeria still has no accurate figures on its petroleum production and consumption. The new technology will usher in effective process to track every petroleum truck.
“We hope that by the time we start doing the 2020 budget in 2019, we would have gotten to a point where lot of the losses that you are seeing are tracked and substantial impact will be made in monies that come into the federation accounts.
“It will help us keep proper data repository of consumption in this country, destruction; data on all trucks that operate total number of products received and what is sold out of filling stations. “It is going to be a collaborative system that involves Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) but situated in PEF,’’ said Kachikwu.
