Senate Probes Expose $303bn in Missing Crude Revenue Linked to NNPC’s Defunct DSDP Programme
STORY: WRITTEN BY JOSEPH NOVEMBER 6,2025
A sweeping forensic audit commissioned by the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Oil Theft has uncovered shocking financial discrepancies amounting to more than $303 billion in crude oil proceeds that were either unaccounted for or diverted under Nigeria’s crude export operations and the now-scrapped Direct Sale Direct Purchase (DSDP) arrangement of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited.
The committee’s report details a massive diversion of crude earnings between 2017 and 2022, including volumes classified as Tax Oil, Royalty Oil, and Profit Oil.
According to the audit, from 2017 to 2021 alone, Nigeria lost over $22 billion to pricing differentials, undocumented sales, and unexplained shortfalls.
In 2017, oil marketers lifted 71,883,502 barrels of domestic crude valued at $3.95 billion, but more than 27% of that—worth $1.09 billion—never reached the federation account.
That same year, 22,152,550 barrels of crude due to the nation as Tax Oil were valued at $1.23 billion, yet 68% of the revenue (about $844 million) was diverted.
The losses reportedly worsened in subsequent years.
In 2019, domestic crude valued at $6.78 billion was lifted by 16 oil marketing firms, but $3.03 billion (44.7%) disappeared.
Tax Oil in the same year, worth $2.51 billion, also recorded losses of roughly $1 billion, representing a 40% diversion rate.
The report further states that, across 2018, 2020, and 2021, more than $5 billion worth of Tax Oil and $6 billion in domestic crude never made it back to government coffers.
Beyond domestic discrepancies, investigators uncovered a staggering $81 billion gap between crude revenue declared by the NNPC and Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) between 2016 and 2017, and the actual inflows recorded by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
With international probes ongoing in the United Kingdom, United States, and Canada, the committee projects that total missing crude proceeds may surpass $200 billion since 2015.
Adding to the revelations, auditors discovered more than 10 undisclosed foreign and local joint venture crude accounts, operated in both naira and dollars, outside approved government financial systems.
Using human intelligence from 16 Niger Delta-based organizations, the forensic experts identified loopholes enabling crude theft, including weak inter-agency coordination, outdated monitoring equipment, and lack of integrated surveillance.
Committee Recommendations
To recover the missing funds and curb further losses, the committee recommended:
- Appointment of a certified recovery consultant working with security agencies such as the JTF, Nigerian Navy, EFCC, and NUPRC.
- Creation of a special court dedicated to prosecuting crude oil thieves.
- Reinstatement of the Weights and Measures Department to ensure precise crude measurement.
- Fast-tracking the Host Communities Development Trust Fund (HCDTF) to discourage pipeline vandalism and sabotage.
Presenting the findings, Senator Ned Munir Nwoko said the evidence proves an “urgent need for both domestic and international action” to trace, recover, and return all diverted crude proceeds.
