…As Corporation loses N11.22bn in one month
Oscarline Onwuemenyi
03 November 2016, Sweetcrude, Abuja — The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said that pipeline vandalism across the country had reduced by about 28 percent.
The corporation made this known in its 13th publication of Monthly Financial and Operations Report released on its website on Thursday.
The report said that the spate of pipeline vandalism has reduced following the Federal Government and NNPC’s sustained engagements with Niger Delta militants.
He said, “In August 2016, there was 28.94 percent drop in the number of pipelines vandalised points relative to July 2016 which had up to 311 vandalised points.”
On natural gas supply to power plants, the report stated that it edged up to 469 million standard cubic feet per day, mmscfd, which equalled about 2,083 megawatts of electricity generation in August 2016.
On refineries’ operations, its report said that the combined value of output by the three refineries “at import parity price’’ for August 2016 was N50.19bn.
It said, “Associated crude plus freight cost was N39.77bn, giving a surplus of N709.21m after an overhead of N9.71bn.”
The report said that this was made possible in spite of the challenges of irregular crude supply and pipeline vandalism to the refineries.
On naira payments to the Federation Account, NNPC said that it transferred N35.05bn into the account in September from the net domestic crude oil receipt and another N1.80bn from gas receipts.
It added that its instalment repayment of debt to the Federation Account was also done with N6.33bn remitted as the 25th instance in the process.
It said, “The domestic crude oil and gas receipt during the month amounted to N96.15bn, consisting of N1.80bn from domestic gas and the sum of N88.01bn from domestic crude oil.
“Of the N88.01bn receipt from crude oil, the sum of N52.96bn (about $268.83m) was transferred to Joint Venture Cash Call (JVCC) being a first line charge.
“It also guarantees a continuous flow of revenue stream to Federation Account.”
Meanwhile, NNPC has again reported a month-end trading deficit of N11.22bn in August.
The figure was obtained on the NNPC website detailing its monthly financial and operations report released in Abuja.
The corporation had posted a trading deficit of N24.18bn loss in its July report.
NNPC, however, indicated that it was able to cut down on its loss-making by N12.96bn when compared with its deficits in previous months.
The deficits were recorded even though two of its subsidiaries – the Pipeline and Products Marketing Company and Nigerian Petroleum Development Company – had a good operational outing during the month.
The report also said crude oil production in Nigeria for the period averaged 1.65m barrels per day (mbpd), representing a 6.47 percent production decrease from the previous month.
The corporation in May, reported a profit of N273.74m, thus reversing its reported average monthly losses of N35bn.
It has, however, failed to sustain the profit-making streak, and has in the last two months, recorded deficits.
This indicates a trading deficit of N11.22bn as against the reported July 2016 deficit figure of N24.18bn.
It said, “This remarkable improvement in August 2016 was largely due to increase in PPMC coastal sales and the significant improvement in NPDC’s revenue for the month under review.
“However, it is imperative to note that the existing force majeure declared by SPDC as a result of vandalised 48-inch Forcados export line is a drag to NPDC and the overall group performance.
“Other factors that negatively impacted on production include force majeure at Qua Iboe terminal following sabotage on the export loading line 2, sabotage of Trans Niger Pipeline, Clough Creek-Tebidaba pipeline and Escravos terminal delivery pipelines.’’
The Forcados terminal alone accounts for 300,000 barrels per day, b/d.
Productions from the deep-water assets, which are beyond easy reach by militants, have remained steady but that onshore and shallow water assets are the worst hit by security breaches.
It added that securing onshore and shallow water locations had also remained a top priority to restore production levels.