NNPC Records $4.95bn Oil, Gas Export in One Year

NNPC Records $4.95bn Oil, Gas Export in One Year
  • Trading deficit rises to N9.53bn in March

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja and Peter Uzoho in Lagos

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) said yesterday that it exported about $4.95 billion worth of oil and gas between March 2019 and March 2020.

This was contained in the corporation’s Monthly Financial and Operations Report (MFOR) for March, 2020, which also announced a trading deficit of N9.53 billion, compared to February’s surplus of N3.95 billion.

A statement by the corporation’s Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Dr. Kennie Obateru, in Abuja, noted that the NNPC has a total crude oil and gas export sale of $256.19 million in March 2020, which decreased by 30.89 per cent, compared to the previous month’s.

“The March 2019 to March 2020 crude oil and gas transactions indicated that crude oil and gas worth $4.95 billion was exported.
“During the month under review, a trading deficit of N9.53 billion was announced for March 2020 compared to the N3.95 billion surplus posted in February 2020.

“The over 300 per cent decline in March 2020 earnings was due primarily to the huge decrease of 181 per cent in the national oil company’s upstream subsidiary, Nigerian Petroleum Development Company’s (NPDC), due to the decline in crude oil prices precipitated by the coronavirus-induced global slowdown.

“This led to reduced exports and dwindling world oil consumption; combined with deficits posted by the refineries, among others,” the report said.

According to the NNPC, of the total sales, crude oil export contributed $184.59 million (72.05 per cent) of the dollar transactions compared with $281.14 million contribution in the previous month; while the export gas sales amounted to $71.60 million in the month.
In the downstream, to ensure continuous availability of petrol and effective distribution of the product across the country, the corporation said during the month, it supplied 1.73 billion litres of petrol, translating to 59.72m litres/day.

On gas production, the NNPC explained that 218.37 billion Cubic Feet (BCF) of natural gas was produced in March 2020, translating to an average daily production of 7493.65 Million Standard Cubic Feet per Day (mmscfd).

The release said 3,119.89BCF of gas was produced from March 2019 to March 2020, representing an average daily production of 7,912.05mmscfd during the period.

It explained that period-to-date production from Joint Ventures (JVs), Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) and NPDC contributed about 69.37 per cent, 21.67 per cent and 8.95 per cent respectively to the total national gas production.

Out of the 218.37BCF of gas supplied in March 2020, according to the report, 120.73BCF of gas was commercialised, consisting of 33.45BCF and 87.28BCF for the domestic and export market respectively, translating to 1,235.56mmscfd of gas to the domestic market and 3,817.40mmscfd of gas supplied to the export market for the month.

The report said 55.63 per cent of the average daily gas produced was commercialised while the balance of 44.37 per cent was re-injected, used as upstream fuel gas or flared.

Gas flare rate was 9.08 per cent for the month under review, amounting to 679.54mmscfd, compared with average gas flare rate of 8.43 per cent, representing 666.90mmscfd for March 2019 to March 2020.

The corporation stated that it had continued to diligently monitor the daily stock of petrol to achieve smooth distribution of petroleum products and zero fuel queue nationwide.

Within the period under review, the NNPC stated that 19 pipeline points were vandalised, representing about 47 per cent decrease from the 32 points recorded in February 2020.

It added that Atlas Cove-Mosimi accounted for 53 per cent of the break-in points, while Mosimi-Ibadan recorded 21 per cent and Suleja-Minna accounted for the remaining 26 per cent.

Related Articles