Stories by Chineme Okafor in Abuja
An operations and financial report of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has shown that the state oil company spent monies worth N956,765,767,585 on various costs it incurred between October 2017 and October 2018, a period covering 13 months.
The report obtained from the NNPC website, explained that top on the list of the corporation’s costs was its expenditure on ensuring that the pump price of petrol to Nigerian stayed at N145 per litre as ordered by the federal government. The NNPC described the cost it incurred on this as under-recovery, for which it claimed N771, 391,262,249 (N771 billion) for the period under consideration.
The NNPC, however, said it imported 21,100,118,126.30 (21 billion) litres of petrol through its Direct Sales-Direct Purchase (DSDP) crude for product swap scheme between January 2018 and January 2019.
Also, there was a claim of N155, 177,555,159 (N155 billion) for repairs and maintenance of petroleum pipeline across the country. It stated that between January 2018 and January 2019, it recorded a total of 2,278 break points on its pipeline, with the highest of 264 breaks recorded in December 2018, while the lowest of 82 was recorded in May 2018.
The corporation equally recorded deficits of N2, 478,250,203 (N2.4 billion) and N27, 718,697,974 (N28 billion) on crude oil and products loses respectively.
According to the NNPC, within the period, it supplied the highest volume of gas for power generation in the country in March 2018 – 854 million standard feet per day (mscf/d) which resulted in 3492 megawatts (MW) per day of power generation, and the lowest of 615mscf/d in September which also led to the generation of 2303MW per day of electricity. On the average, it noted that its gas supply to the power sector within the period was 742mscf/d resulting to 2944MW of daily electricity generation.
Furthermore, on the economics of natural gas produced, the corporation stated that between January 2018 and January 2019, a total of 300.35 billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas was flared in Nigeria, while 468.23bcf was monetised and sent to the domestic economy with the power sector getting 291.04bcf and domestic industries – 177.19bcf.
Another 1342.99bcf of gas was monetised for the export market where the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) got 1199.79bcf of the supply for the period, leaving the balance of 79.94bcf; 38.96bcf and 27.30bcf for the Escravos Gas to Liquid (EGTL); Natural Gas Liquids/Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG); and West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) respectively.
With regards to its upstream subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), it said it production figures for the period was 52,726,528 barrels of oil, which it added translated to 133,148 barrels a day oil and 6.94 per cent of the country’s total oil output for the period.
It explained that out of all of NDPC’s solely operated assets, the Okono Okpoho field in Oil Mining Lease (OML) 119, produced most of its oil – 59.46 per cent.
