Chinese oil company pays FG N29.3bn for OML 130, 138

The Federal Government got a total payment of 539.578 million Yuan, about $81.329 million, from a Chinese oil firm, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) in 2016, for two petroleum assets, Oil Mining Leases (OML) 130 and 138.

The payments which translated to about N29.278 billion, were for taxes, royalties and fees for the oil assets operated by the company. The report used an exchange rate of 6.6344 Renminbi Yuan to one United States dollar. It also included payments from its subsidiary, Nexen Energy.
The payments details obtained yesterday were released by the Canadian authorities under the Extractive Sector Transparency Measures Act (ESTMA). The ESTMA requires extractive entities active in Canada to publicly disclose, on an annual basis, specific payments made to all governments in Canada and abroad.
The Act, according to the Natural Resources Canada, delivers on the country’s international commitments to contribute to global efforts to increase transparency and deter corruption in the extractive sector.

The report of the payments was presented to the Canadian authorities, May 5, 2017, by Chief Financial Officer of CNOOC Limited, Hua Zhong.
Giving a breakdown of the payments, the reports stated that 331.808 million yuan was paid by CNOOC for OML 130, comprising 34.861 million yuan for taxes; 1,953 yuan for royalties and 296.944 million yuan for fees.

For OML 138, CNOOC paid 14.507 million yuan; 157.115 million yuan and 36.148 million for taxes, royalties and fees respectively, bringing total payments for the asset to 207.770 million yuan.
Specifically, the payments were made to the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS; Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC; Nigerian Export Supervision Scheme, NESS; Nigerian Petroleum Exchange, NIPEX; and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.

The NDDC and the NNPC received the highest payments from CNOOC in the year review, for levies, royalties and concessional rent respectively.
CNOOC paid 329.627 million yuan, an equivalent of $49.685 million to the NDDC for levies in 2016; while the NNPC received 157.117 million yuan ($23.68 million) from CNOOC for royalties and fees.

The FIRS received 49.37 million yuan, an equivalent of $7.442 million, as education taxes and royalties from the Chinese oil firm, while NESS and NIPEX received payments totaling 2.135 million yuan ($0.322 million) and 1.329 million yuan ($0.2 million) respectively.
In Nigeria, getting multinational oil and gas companies to disclose payments to government and getting Federal Government agencies to declare receipts from oil companies had proven to be a herculean task.
The companies and the government’s refusal to declare such payments had been a subject of controversy and had made the Nigerian petroleum industry to be described as opaque and lacking transparency. The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, NEITI, had been at the forefront of instilling transparency in the Nigerian petroleum industry, ensuring full disclosure in payments and beneficial ownership.