NNPC Report: Nigeria Produced More Oil in 2017 from PSC Models

By Chineme Okafor in Abuja

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has indicated that more oil were produced by Nigeria in 2017 from the Production Sharing Contracts (PSC) it has with international oil companies (IOCs) in the country.

According to the latest monthly operations and financial reports of the NNPC for January 2018, which was released in Abuja and obtained by THISDAY on Tuesday, the total oil production of the country in one year, between January and December 2017 was 690,011,529 million barrels (mb), out of which PSC contributed 305,811,278mb and represented about 44.31 per cent.

Following closely, the report stated, was production from Joint Venture (JV) arrangements at 212,850,712mb, which represented 30.84 per cent; Alternative Finance (AF) contributed 92,652,391mb which was 13.42 per cent; while production from NNPC’s upstream subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) for the period was 34,302,513mb which represented 4.97 per cent.

The NNPC report also indicated that outputs from independents for the period was 44,394,635mb which represented 6.43 per cent.

NNPC explained that while crude oil production in the country was reported a month in arrears and still subject to further reconciliation with the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the IOCs, the country however produced an average of 1,890,443 million barrels per day (mbd) of oil.

Also for the period under consideration, NNPC said a total of 3,054.33 billion cubic feet (BCF) of gas was produced. It said it represented an average daily production of 7,709.89 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) of gas.

It added that the percentage of gas production from JVs, PSCs and NPDC were about 69.42 per cent, 22.58 per cent and 8 per cent respectively.

To fund the JV operations for the year, the report stated that: “Total export crude oil and gas receipt for the period January 2017 to January 2018 stood at $4.02 billion. Out of which the sum of $2.97 billion was transferred to JV cash call as first line charge and the balance of $1.05 billion was paid into Federation Account.”

Shedding more lights on the activities of its subsidiary, the NPDC, the report explained: “NPDC’s crude production was based on NPDC’s wholly owned assets and percentage holding in JV assets.

“The NPDC January to December 2017 cumulative production from all fields amounted to 34,302,513 barrels of crude oil which translated to an average daily production of 93,979 barrels per day.

“Comparing PTD NPDC performance to national production, the company’s production share amounted to 4.97 per cent. NPDC production continued to improve as a result of success recorded in repairs of vandalised pipeline in the Niger Delta and resumption of crude oil lifting activities at Forcados Terminal. NPDC is projected to ramp-up production level to 250,000bpd in the near future.”

Continuing, the report added that: “PTD production from NPDC wholly operated assets amounted to 10,009,301 barrels or 29.18 per cent of the total NPDC production, with Okono Okpoho (OML 119) alone producing 77.87 per cent of the NPDC wholly owned operated assets or 22.72 per cent of the total NPDC production.

“Also on the NPDC operated JV assets, in which NPDC owns 55 per cent controlling interest, crude oil production amounted to 17,235,899 barrel or 50.25 per cent of the NPDC total production. On the non-operated assets, production level stood at 7,057,313 barrels or 20.57 per cent of the company’s production.“