Kasim Sumaina in Abuja
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said that it has a trade surplus of N15.04 billion for January 2019, an increase of 24 per cent over the N12.13 billion surplus posted by the corporation in December 2019.
The NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, in a statement in Abuja Sunday, stated that details of the report contained in the January 2019 edition of the corporation’s Monthly Financial and Operations Report (MFPR) attributed the positive financial position to the improved performance of NNPC’s upstream subsidiary, Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), which recorded surplus numbers despite reduced operational activities in the month.
The report submitted that NPDC’s sustained revenue drive, evident from recent average weekly production of 332,000 barrels of crude oil per day, had made achieving 500,000bpd production by 2020 plausible.
He said that the NPDC’s position contrasts with the high expenditure levels posted by two other entities of NNPC, the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC) and Duke Oil, although both ended the month with profit.
According to him, “In terms of sales and remittance of crude oil and gas proceeds, the corporation announced total export receipts of $381.70 million in the month under review as against $345.68 million posted in December 2018.”
He further revealed that a breakdown of the numbers indicated that contributions from crude oil amounted to $269.43 million, while gas and miscellaneous receipts stood at $111.75 and $0.52 million respectively.
“Within the period under focus, NNPC transferredN153.01 billion into the Federation Account, while cumulatively, from January 2018 to January 2019, Federation and JV received N905.45 billion and N658.66 billion respectively, under the column of naira payments to the Federation Accounts,” Ughamadu said.
He added that in the downstream operations, 1,998.61 million litres of petrol was imported into the country through the Direct-Sale-Direct-Purchase (DSDP) crude-for-product arrangement in January 2019. The number is slightly higher than the 1,789.20 million litres of petrol imported in the month of December 2018.
“The 42 edition of the NNPC MFOR recorded 230 hacked pipeline points, leaving only two ruptured, marking an 11 per cent improvement from the 264 vandalised points posted in December 2018,” he said.
A breakdown indicated that Mosimi-Ibadan, Ibadan-Ilorin and Aba-Enugu pipelines accounted for 67, 62 and 30 points respectively, which translated to 29 per cent, 27 per cent and 13 per cent of the vandalised points respectively.
The Warri-River Niger axis accounted for 10 per cent and other locations accounted for the remaining 21 per cent of the pipeline breaks.
In the gas sector, he observed that natural gas production increased by 2.22 per cent at 245.83 billion cubic feet compared to the output in December 2018, translating to an average production of 8,194.34 million standard cubic feet of gas per day (mmscfd).
“Out of the volume supplied in January 2019, a total of 151.50bcf of gas was commercialised, consisting of 38.03BCF and 113.47 BCF for the domestic and export market respectively. The figure translates to a total supply of 1,226.83 mmscfd of gas to the domestic market and 3,780.24 mmscfd of gas supplied to the export market for the month.
“This implies that 61.73 per cent of the average daily gas produced was commercialised, while the balance of 38.27 per cent was re-injected, used as upstream fuel gas or flared.
“Gas flare rate was 7.52 per cent for the month under review, translating to 610.07mmscfd compared with average gas flare rate of 9.76 per cent, that is 770.31 mmscfd for the period January 2018 to January 2019,” Ughamadu said.
