Ike Amos
04 June 2016, Sweetcrude, Abuja — Nigeria earned $141.87 million from the crude oil and gas exports in the month of March 2016, data from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, has revealed.
The NNPC, in its Monthly Financial and Operations Report for March 2016, explained that Nigeria’s March export earnings dipped by $94.83 million or 40.06 percent from earnings of $236.7 million recorded in February 2016.
Giving a breakdown of the 12-months earnings, the NNPC report showed that $2.7 billion, $1.069 billion and $217.545 million were earned from crude oil export, gas export and other export, proceeds, respectively.
The report also stated that the country’s total earnings from crude oil and gas sales for the last 12 months, between April 2015 and March 2016, stood at $3.977 billion.
Breakdown of the March export sales figures showed that $88.364 million was earned from crude oil export; $2.276 million from gas sales; and $51.229 million was from other receipts.
The NNPC noted that the drastic slump in total export receipt is largely due to shut in of about 300,000 barrels of oil per day, b/d, at Forcados Terminal following Force majeure declared by Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) on 15th February, 2016, which ensured that all un-lifted February and March cargoes were deferred until the repair is completed.
It said, “Of the total receipts, the sum of $184.98 million was remitted to Federation Account while the balance of $4.298 billion was used to fund Joint Venture (JV) Cash Call for the period. JV funding, which is a first line charge to Federation Account, has gulped more than 95.90 percent of the proceeds.
“The 2015 Approved Budget requires monthly funding of about $615.8million. NNPC is therefore mandated to sweep all the export receipt to JV Cash Call funding implying a zero remittance to Federation Account.”
In addition, the report disclosed that the NNPC transferred N69.544 billion into the Federation account in the month under review, bringing the total amount paid by the NNPC into the Federation Account between April 2015 and March 2016 to N1.118 trillion.
The report further stated that the NNPC’s group operating revenue for the months of February and March 2016 were N107.83 billion and N104.8 billion respectively, representing 33.32 percent and 34.28 percent respectively of the monthly budget.
It added that operating expenditure for the same periods were N129.03 billion and N126.72 billion respectively, which also represented 47.74 per cent and 46.88 per cent of the budget for months respectively.
