In 2018, Royal Dutch Shell plc paid N2.2 trillion as revenue to the Federal Government from its exploration activities, the highest paid to any government among all the 34 countries it currently operates.
According to a breakdown from Shell financial statement, Nigeria government received a total of N2.2 trillion ($6.39bn), which represents a 48 percent increase compared with N1.5 trillion ($4.32bn) in 2017.
Further breakdown shows in 2018, Nigeria government received production entitlement of $3.7 billion, taxes of $1.3 billion, royalties of $358 million and fees of $976 billion.
It made another N2.1 billion as statutory payment to the Niger Delta Development Commission, Bayo Ojulari, SNEPCo’s managing director, said in a statement to BusinessDay.
A further breakdown of Shell’s records shows Malaysia received the second highest payment of $4.7 billion; Norway received the third highest payment of $4.2 billion, while Oman received the fourth highest payment of $3.2 billion.
According to Ojulari, the payments resulted from oil and gas production by SNEPCo’s flagship investment, Bonga, which is Nigeria’s first oil and gas project in water depths of over 1,000 metres. “At the end of 2018, SNEPCo had produced 819 million barrels of oil from the Bonga field which translates into huge contributions to the Nigerian economy in addition to the significant human capital development of deep-water expertise among Nigerians.”
On the ongoing Bonga South West Aparo, a new project in the Bonga field, Ojulari said the company was making progress with the 150,000 barrel per day capacity project after signing the Head of Terms agreement with partners last February and released Invitation to Tenders to contractors in the same month.
“We are working with our government and other partners to take the project to a point where we are able to take the final investment decision,” he said.
He noted that the pride of SNEPCo was the increase in its Nigerian workforce to over 96 percent and the creation of Nigeria’s first oil and gas engineers with deep-water experience. “The success story at Bonga is not only that it is Nigeria’s first deep-water project but the fact that Bonga is a Nigerian venture delivered by Nigerians using global expertise and processes offered by the Shell Group that have launched Nigeria into the league of notable deep-water players.”
Apart from payments to government, SNEPCo is also credited with many social investment initiatives nationwide, particularly in education, health and sports, which Ojulari said were considered very critical to the overall well-being of Nigerians.
According to Ojulari,, the company spent over N2.2 billion on various social investment programmes in 2018.
“Today, SNEPCo supports 298 undergraduates towards achieving their degrees with beneficiaries across the 36 states of Nigeria and another 375 scholars on full-board secondary school scholarship programme for pupils from public schools into seven top-flight private secondary schools across Nigeria to enhance access to quality education,” he said.
