Chineme Okafor in Abuja
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has disclosed that it posted a trading surplus of N9.85 billion for the month of September 2018.
It said the figure was an improvement to the previous month’s deficit of N3.90 billion.
The statement from its Group General Manager, Public Affairs, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, said details of the trading surplus were contained in the newly released September 2018 edition of its monthly financial and operations report.
The statement indicated that the improved performance was as a result of higher revenue by its upstream subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Develop-ment Company (NPDC).
According to it, NPDC’s production has been on the rise as a result of success recorded in repairs of vandalised pipeline in the Niger Delta and the resumption of crude oil lifting activities at Forcados Terminal.
It equally explained that the total crude oil and gas export sale of $626.62 million was made in September, 2018 under the NNPC’s dollar transactions, which is 33.32 per cent higher than the previous month.
It stated that crude oil export sales contributed $508.54 million, which was 81.16 per cent of the dollar transactions compared with $337.62 million contribution in the previous month.
The statement added that export gas sales amounted to $118.08 million in the month, adding that the September 2017 to September 2018 crude oil and gas transactions indicated that crude oil and gas worth $5.45 billion was exported.
In the downstream sector, the report noted that during the period under review, NNPC continued to ensure increased petrol supply and effective distribution across the country, saying that 1.66 billion litres of petrol, translating to 55.50 million litres per day, were supplied by it.
In the month under review, NNPC said a total of 125 pipeline points were vandalised, out of which eight pipeline points failed to be welded and only one pipeline point was ruptured.
The figure, it noted translated to a significant increase from the 86 vandalised points recorded in previous month.
A further break-down of the September 2018 results indicated that Aba-Enugu and Mosimi-Ibadan accounted for 36 points and 33 points respectively or approximately 29 per cent or 26 per cent of the vandalised points.
The report showed that PHC-Aba and Zaria-Gusau accounted for 10 per cent each.
Atlas Cove-Mosimi and other locations accounted for 14 per cent and 11 per cent of the pipeline breaks respectively.
Regarding natural gas off-take, commercialisation and utilisation, the report indicated that out of the 238.91 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas supplied in September 2018, a total of 142.09 bcf of gas was commercialised, comprising 30.36 bcf and 111.73 bcf for the domestic and export market, respectively.
This, it noted, translated to a total supply of 1,011.96 million cubic feet per day (mmscf/d) of gas to the domestic market
