OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, on Tuesday said it remitted a surplus of N41 billion into the Federation Account in 2018.
In a statement by the NNPC’s Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, the corporation said it remitted N1.26 trillion as against the N1.22 trillion projected in the 2018 budget.
According to the statement quoting the NNPC’s Group Managing Director, Dr. Maikanti Baru, although 2.3 million barrels per day, mbpd, of crude oil was proposed in the 2018 budget, national daily production for the period under review was between 1.89mbpd and 1.9mbpd.
Baru listed the two sources of inflows into the Federation Account from the NNPC as equity crude oil sales less cost of recovery from the Joint Venture, JV, cash call arrears, and domestic crude less cost recovery.
He said unlike in the past, the JV cash call arrears were now being efficiently managed to ensure the corporation does not owe the federation.
“The NNPC ensures that it contributes to the cost of the production of crude oil and gas in the upstream sector to avoid a repeat of the mistakes of the past. If we had made cash call payments in the past, the arrears that we are liquidating now would not have arisen.
“The current situation creates a win-win scenario for the country. The NNPC is strategically saving for the rainy day to make a better future for all of us by liquidating the arrears,” he said.
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According to him, the corporation, on a regular basis, balanced up with the Federation Account Allocation Committee and the JV cash calls in order to make sure that the future generations did not suffer from the legacy debt.
