NEITI faces methane data questions over 18 incomplete records

Nigeria’s NEITI faces questions over its first company-level greenhouse-gas disclosure after a Premium Times news report published Oct. 27 identified 18 incomplete methane records among 30 company-year entries.

The issue matters because NEITI’s 2023 oil-and-gas audit said 15 of 62 audited companies submitted greenhouse-gas information, while 47 did not, setting an early public baseline for emissions tracking.

Premium Times reviewed Appendix 12 of NEITI’s 2022 and 2023 oil-and-gas materials using the Emissions Monitoring and Accountability Tool, an interactive platform that organises and compares NEITI’s published emissions data.

The review identified identical 2022 methane entries for Chevron Nigeria Limited and the Shell Petroleum Development Company: 173,578,759.2 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent and 6,943,150.368 kilograms of methane. Carbon dioxide equivalent, or CO₂e, expresses the warming effect of different greenhouse gases in a common carbon-dioxide measure.

That Chevron-SPDC CO₂e figure equals about 173,579 metric tons, according to Atlas360 calculations. Premium Times said the values matched across almost all reported fields except halons, a group of industrial gases.

The same review identified repeated year-to-year methane figures for Aradel Holdings Plc: 133,522,033 kilograms CO₂e and 5,340,877 kilograms of methane in both 2022 and 2023. Network E&P also showed repeated entries of 112 kilograms CO₂e and 3.64 kilograms methane in both years.

Repeated numbers do not establish inaccurate reporting or misconduct. The Premium Times report said exactly matching values, especially across several decimal places, should be checked against the original company submissions.

Duplicate entries and gaps

The review also found missing methane information across much of the dataset. Only 12 of the 30 company-year records contained information across all three methane reporting fields, while 18 had missing entries.

NAE recorded 963,970 kilograms of methane in 2022 but zero in the related CO₂e field, the report said. In 2023, NAE again reported methane emissions but left the CO₂e field blank.

Chevron and Heirs Energies reported 2023 methane only as CO₂e, without the underlying methane mass. Heirs Energies listed 217.4 million kilograms CO₂e, one of the largest methane-related figures in the dataset, but the missing methane mass prevents users from independently checking the conversion.

Platform Petroleum appeared on the reporting sheet, but all of its methane fields were blank for both years. The published report did not explain whether blank cells meant no emissions, no submitted data, or emissions that had not been calculated.

The company count also did not reconcile cleanly. NEITI’s audit said 15 companies reported greenhouse-gas data and 47 did not, but Premium Times found 15 companies on the reporting sheets and 58 entries on the non-reporting sheet, or 73 entries in all.

Platform Petroleum appeared on both the reporting and non-reporting lists. Some entries also referred to joint-venture interests or oil fields rather than clearly identified legal entities, including NEPL and Shoreline interests in OML 30 and separate listings for Esso’s Erha and Usan fields.

Nigeria has committed to end routine gas flaring by 2030 and reduce fugitive methane emissions from the oil-and-gas sector by 60% by 2031. Fugitive methane refers to gas that escapes unintentionally from production, processing or transport systems.

In a response to a Freedom of Information request cited by Premium Times, NEITI said greenhouse-gas reporting is encouraged, not mandatory, under EITI Requirement 3.4. NEITI said its template asked companies to provide emissions data and methodology information, including emission factors, ground-based sensors, satellite estimates and other recognised approaches.

NEITI said it did not convert, normalise, recalculate or adjust the company submissions. The agency also said Nigeria does not yet have an established national verification framework for these disclosures, and that NEITI’s role is transparency, collection and publication rather than independent technical validation.

NEITI acknowledged the observations on repeated entries and identical figures and said it would conduct an internal review. The agency said original company templates and internal validation records were not intended for public disclosure, and any corrections or clarifications from its review would be reflected in the published dataset.

2030 and 2031 tests

Nigeria’s 2030 deadline for ending routine gas flaring is the first dated test for whether company-level disclosure can support public tracking of oil-and-gas emissions. Reliable baseline data will affect how citizens, regulators and investors assess progress toward that target.

The 2031 goal to cut fugitive methane emissions by 60% creates a second benchmark. Future NEITI datasets will need to distinguish reported zeros from missing fields, identify legal entities and assets clearly, and show enough methodology for users to reproduce emissions comparisons.

Premium Times said the report was supported by the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development as part of the Deepening Methane Emissions Transparency Initiative-Stream II.

Source: news report, Premium Times via AllAfrica, Oct. 28