Politics NNPC denies defrauding Nigeria with Swiss Partners

Vunderkind

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The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, on Tuesday, denied the KPMG report which described it as a cesspool of monumental corruption. The NNPC has denied conniving with Swiss oil companies to defraud Nigeria.

Andrew Yakubu, Group Managing Director of the corporation, debunked the allegations at the investigative hearing of the alleged gang-up between the NNPC and Swill oil firms to defraud the country of billions of dollars.

The allegation was made by Berne Declaration, a non-governmental advocacy group based in Switzerland.

Berne Declaration said that Nigeria loses billions of dollars yearly from large volumes of crude oil exported from the country below the international market price. It specifically mentioned that Vitol and Trafigura Commodity Trading Firms of Switzerland were in cahoots with NNPC in the shady deal.

Mr. Yakubu, however, has denied this, saying that NNPC’s pricing strategy was in line with international best practice in the oil industry.

“Our prices are based on a reference to the benchmark crude Brent which prices are published by Platts for the international community,”he said. He also said that Berne Declaration’s claim that Vitol and Trafigura accounted for more than 36% of total crude oil volume disposed by NNPC was a false one. He said that of the 341.07 million barrels of oil disposed by the NNPC in 2013, Vitol and Trafigura accounted for only 30.7 million barrels.

“The lifting of Trafigura and Vitol in 2013 therefore represents nine per cent of the total lifting as against 36 per cent reported by Bernes Declaration,” Mr. Yakubu countered.

He said that for the period under review, Nigerian traders collectively accounted for 98.2 million barrels.

Mr. Yakubu explained to the committee that international traders (of which Swiss trading companies were inclusive) accounted for 61.2 million barrels, while offshore and Nigerian refineries made up 36.2 and 38.3 million barrels respectively. He said transparency was employed in choosing buyers for Nigerian crude and that the process was a competitive one based on financial and technical capabilities.
 
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