Lagos — President Muhammadu Buhari has disclosed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has made a profit for the first time in its 44-year history.
He said on Thursday that the national oil company generated an income of N287 billion ($698 million) after tax in 2020, according to Reuters report.
Buhari, who also the Minister Petroleum Resources, gave no explanation for the state company’s swing to profit in 2020, a year when the economic shock caused by the global COVID-19 pandemic triggered a slump in the oil price.
“This development is consistent with this administration’s commitment to ensuring prudent management of resources and maximisation of value for the Nigerian people from their natural resources,” Buhari said in a statement.
NNPC, which operates joint production ventures with Western oil majors and is also involved in refining and marketing petroleum products, made losses of 803 billion naira in 2018 and 1.7 billion naira in 2019 but has otherwise released few details of its finances for most of its history.
Anti-corruption campaigners have long been asking for NNPC to be more transparent, and last year it published audited 2019 accounts of 20 of its subsidiaries in what it said was a historical first.
A spokesperson for Buhari said NNPC would share the audited financial reports, according to Reuters. They were not immediately available on the NNPC website.
An NNPC spokesperson said he would try and make the reports available on Thursday, but that they would definitely be online by Friday.
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