Ike Amos
Abuja — The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Monday, said it has repaid over $1.5 billion out of the $5.1 billion cash call arrears it owes its Joint Venture partners.
Speaking in Abuja, at the 12th National Conference of the Nigerian Association for Energy Economics/International Association for Energy Economics, Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, noted that the total cash call payments so far had contributed immensely in growing Nigeria’s reserves and oil output.
He said, “So far, we have repaid over $1.5 billion out of the US$5.1bn cash call arrears to date, a development that has not only restored the confidence of international oil companies, IOC, JV partners, but has also led to improved reserves growth and crude oil production.
“It was quite fulfilling that in 2018 — that is for the second year in a row — we concluded the fiscal year without any cash call arrears.”
The NNPC boss added that the automation of its crude oil marketing operations had helped eliminate the perceived mystery around the management and sale of Nigeria’s crude oil grades.
According to him, this was achieved with the introduction of innovative solutions triggering an ambiance of transparency and stakeholders’ confidence in the operations of the Crude Oil Marketing Division, COMD.
“I can state without equivocation that, today at a click of a button we can tell you how much crude oil is sold, at what price, who bought it and where it has gone to. This has in no small way raised our efficiency quotient to an enviable level,” he said.
Baru further disclosed that an average of 783 million Standard Cubic Feet of gas per day was flared in 2018, 2.9 percent higher than 761 mmscfd supplied to the power sector within the same period.
He explained that in 2018, national average daily gas production stood at 7.90 billion Standard Cubic Feet, SCF, representing an increase of three percent above 2017 average daily gas production of 7.67 billion SCF.
He said, “Of the 7.90 billion SCF per day produced in 2018, an average of 3.32 billion SCF per day (42 percent) was supplied to the export market, 2.5 billion SCF per day (32 percent) for re-injection/fuel gas, 1.3 billion SCF per day (16 percent) was supplied to the domestic market and about 783 million SCF per day (10 percent) was flared.
“Domestic gas supply capacity was marginally stable at about 1700 million SCF per day, with an average of 1.3 billion SCF per day actually supplied to the domestic market. This is due to power evacuation challenges resulting from frequency management caused by the rejection of allocated load by Distribution Companies (DISCOs) as well as transmission line constraints.
“However, of the 1.3 billion SCF per day supplied to the domestic market, an average of 761 million SCF per day was supplied to the power sector while 470 million SCF per day was supplied to the industries and the balance of 69 million SCF per day was delivered to the West African Market through the West African Gas Pipeline, WAGP.”