Audit Firms in Warri: Statutory and External Audit Services

An audit that understands JV billing, dollar contracts, and marine assets, not one that treats Warri like any other Nigerian city.

A generic audit misses what actually drives risk in a Niger Delta oilfield services business: revenue tied to IOC and NNPC-linked joint venture cycles, invoices priced in dollars, and fixed assets sitting on vessels and rigs rather than in a warehouse. Get any of these wrong and the cost shows up later, as a bank facility declined, a CAC penalty, or a FIRS query you can’t defend. We built our Warri audit practice specifically around what this sector gets wrong most often.

Matthew Ogagavworia & Co. (Chartered Accountants) has audited Niger Delta oil and gas service companies for over 25 years, signed off by an FCA under International Standards on Auditing. We work from Alausa, Ikeja, with fieldwork scheduled into Warri only where a physical presence, stock counts, marine asset verification, site-level control testing, genuinely earns its place in the engagement.

That experience is the difference between an auditor who has to learn your sector from scratch on your file and one who already knows where the risk sits. We’ve seen how JV billing cycles distort receivables aging, how dollar contracts create restatement risk if the translation policy isn’t documented, and how a marine fixed asset register drifts out of date if no one owns keeping it current. Every engagement starts from that base of experience, not a blank slate.

What Makes a Warri Audit Different

Four risk areas separate a competent Warri audit from a generic one. We test all four on every engagement:

None of these four risks is unique to Warri in principle. What is unique is how often they show up together in the same file. A marine haulage company invoicing a JV partner in dollars, subcontracting equipment to a third party, and running payroll for both Nigerian and rotational staff carries all four risks at once. Treating them as four separate, unrelated checks misses how they interact, and that interaction is usually where the real finding sits.

Take a typical scenario: a vessel operator invoices an IOC-linked JV partner in dollars, but pays its Nigerian crew in naira and its two expatriate captains through a separate arrangement. By the time the books reach year-end, the exchange rate used for the JV invoice, the rate implied by the naira payroll, and the rate used for CIT computation can all differ. None of these differences is fraudulent, they usually reflect three different people making three reasonable decisions at three different points in the year, but a lender or JV partner reading the accounts sees inconsistency, not reasonableness. Catching this at interim fieldwork, rather than at year-end when the gap has already compounded across twelve months of transactions, is the entire point of doing audit work in phases rather than as a single year-end exercise.

Who This Is For

Our Warri audit practice serves three types of client most often, each with a slightly different starting point:

Oilfield service companies with an existing bank facility — where the audit exists primarily to satisfy a lender’s covenant, and turnaround time against the bank’s deadline matters as much as the finding itself.

Companies bringing in a new JV partner or investor — where the audited accounts need to withstand scrutiny from someone who did not build the business and has no reason to extend you the benefit of the doubt.

Businesses that have never had a statutory audit before — where the first engagement is as much about establishing a clean baseline and workable controls as it is about the opinion itself.

Why Choose Us

Sector-specific, not generic. We understand JV billing cycles and marine asset accounting because we’ve audited them before, not because we’re reading the standard for the first time on your file. That experience shows up in how quickly we can tell you which risks actually apply to your specific operation, rather than running through a checklist built for a generic Nigerian company.

Remote-first, built for the Niger Delta. Planning and clearance run by video call. Fieldwork requiring physical presence is scoped and priced upfront, not added as a surprise. This isn’t a compromise on audit quality, it’s a delivery model designed around the reality that flying a finance team to Lagos repeatedly is neither necessary nor a good use of your time.

One point of contact. The person who scopes your engagement is the person who sees it through, from the first planning call to the signed opinion. You are not handed off to a junior team member you’ve never spoken with partway through the process.

Our Audit Process

1. Scoping call — we confirm your CAMA 2020 filing status, prior audit history, and the sector risks specific to your operation, so the engagement letter reflects your actual situation rather than a standard template.
2. Planning — risk assessment across revenue, receivables, fixed assets, and controls before any fieldwork starts, identifying which areas genuinely need a Warri site visit and which can be handled remotely.
3. Fieldwork — remote document review through our secure portal, with a scheduled Warri visit for verification your operations genuinely require, timed around your operations calendar rather than ours.
4. Draft and clearance — draft financial statements and a management letter naming specific control weaknesses, reviewed with you on a video call before anything is finalised or filed.
5. Sign-off and filing — audit opinion signed by an FCA, CAC filing coordinated on your behalf, with the file kept ready for any lender or JV partner query that follows.

Related Services

A Warri audit rarely stands alone. These services connect most often to the work above:

Tax Consultants in Warri — FIRS and DBIR compliance for the same oil and gas service companies we audit, including WHT on subcontracts and expatriate PAYE, so your tax filings and your audited accounts tell the same story.

Company Secretarial Services — statutory registers, board resolutions, and CAC filings kept current alongside your audit.

Financial Modelling and Valuation — for companies preparing to raise finance or bring in a JV partner, where audited accounts are the starting point, not the whole picture a lender needs.

Pricing

We price Warri audit engagements by scope, not a flat published rate, because two companies of similar size can carry very different JV and fixed asset risk. Fee drivers typically include:

• The size and complexity of your fixed asset base, particularly marine craft and equipment
• The number of JV or production-sharing arrangements requiring separate revenue testing
• Whether this is a first-year audit or a repeat engagement with an established audit trail
• The state of your existing accounting records at the point we start

You receive a written engagement letter with the fee, scope, and timeline agreed before any work begins. No engagement proceeds on a verbal estimate.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does my Warri company need a statutory audit?

Under CAMA 2020, companies above the small company threshold must file audited financial statements annually. We confirm your specific status at no cost during the first consultation.

Can you audit us without repeated trips to Warri?

Yes. Planning and clearance run remotely by video call. We scope one or more Warri visits into the engagement letter only where physical verification is genuinely required.

How long does a typical engagement take?

Four to eight weeks from engagement letter to signed opinion for a mid-sized oilfield services company, depending on the state of your existing records and JV billing complexity.

Can you audit a company that invoices in US dollars?

Yes. We confirm the exchange rate basis for translation and for CIT and VAT computation during planning, so the treatment is consistent and defensible.

Do you handle the professional clearance if we’re switching auditors?

Yes, including the correspondence with your outgoing auditor required under ICAN’s professional standards.

What do you need from us to get started?

Prior year financial statements, trial balance, bank statements, fixed asset register, and access to your accounting records, either digital or through a scheduled data-gathering visit.

Will you tell us honestly if our records aren’t ready for an audit?

Yes, at the planning stage, not partway through fieldwork. If your records need cleanup work first, we say so and scope that separately rather than running an audit on a foundation that won’t support a clean opinion.

Can one audit satisfy more than one lender’s reporting requirements?

Usually yes. We confirm each lender’s specific format and covenant test requirements during planning, so one audit produces what every lender needs without repeat work.

What happens if you find a serious control weakness during fieldwork?

We flag it to you immediately rather than waiting for the final management letter, so you have the maximum amount of time to address it before the audit concludes and before it affects any facility renewal timeline.

Do you only work with large oilfield service companies, or smaller operators too?

Both. We scope the engagement to your actual size and complexity. A smaller operator with one or two JV contracts needs a different depth of testing than a company managing a dozen concurrent arrangements, and we price accordingly.

What Happens After You Reach Out

1. A confidential call — to understand your company structure, prior audit history, and what’s driving the need for this engagement, whether that’s a bank deadline, a JV requirement, or simply a first-time statutory obligation.
2. A written engagement letter — with the fee, scope, and timeline agreed before any work begins, so there is no ambiguity about what you’re paying for or when you’ll have it.
3. A named point of contact — who scopes, plans, and sees the engagement through to sign-off, rather than a rotating cast of unfamiliar names.

Common Compliance Mistakes to Avoid

In our experience, these mistakes turn a routine Warri audit into a delayed or qualified one:

• Treating the audit as a year-end event rather than something that starts with how transactions are recorded month to month
• Booking dollar-denominated invoices at whatever rate is convenient at the time, rather than a documented, consistent policy
• Letting fixed asset registers fall out of date as equipment is added, sold, or scrapped, so the audit has to reconstruct history that should have been tracked in real time
• Assuming DBIR and FIRS compliance are separate problems handled by different people, when a reconciled position needs one coordinated view
• Waiting until a bank requests audited accounts before starting the process, leaving no room for the interim work that catches problems early

Client Testimonials

We’re building a published set of client references for our Warri audit practice. Rather than publish quotes you can’t verify, we’ll introduce you directly to a comparable client, with their permission, once we understand your engagement. Ask for a reference call as part of your consultation.

Ready to Talk About Your Audit?

A bank facility renewal, a JV partner review, or a CAMA 2020 deadline doesn’t wait. The earlier we start, the more room there is to fix a control weakness before it becomes a qualified opinion, and the less disruptive fieldwork needs to be to your operations. Scope your engagement now, and you’ll have a written engagement letter with fee, scope, and timeline in hand before any work begins.

Tel: (+234) 802 320 0801, (+234) 807 576 5799

Email: enquiry@mocaccountants.com

Office: 5, Ishola Bello Close, Off Iyalla Street, Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria

Warri Office: Suite 7, 2nd Floor, St Elizabeth Plaza,77, Okumagba Avenue, Warri, Delta State

Matthew: 08023200801, Fred: 08062532219

Asaba Office: 2, Fidelity Fortune Street, Off Summit Road, Asaba, Delta State. Call Matthew: 08023200801, Peter: 08033296115