Uche Usim, Abuja and Adewale Sanyaolu
From the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) comes cheery news of an improved trading surplus of N6.33 billion recorded last May.
The figure is 13 per cent higher than the N5.6 billion surplus posted in the preceding month.
The report, contained in the May 2019 edition of the NNPC Monthly Financial and Operations Report (MFOR) released on Sunday in Abuja, attributed the modest rise to the increase in gas and power output.
The report made public by the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the Corporation, Ndu Ughamadu, also credited the result to the surplus recorded by the corporation’s downstream entities like NNPC Retail, PPMC, NPSC and Duke Oil.
The report further indicated that within the period, NNPC recorded a total of $580.32 million in export sales of crude oil and gas which is 23.39 per cent higher than April’s figure. Out of this number, crude oil export sales contributed $458.59 million, which translates to 79.02 per cent of the entire dollar transactions compared with $342.11 million contributed in the previous month.
The report also showed that between May 2018 and May 2019, crude oil and gas worth $5.97 billion was exported.
In the downstream, to ensure uninterrupted supply and effective distribution of petrol across the country, a total of 2.06billion litres of petrol translating to 66.49mn liters/day were supplied for the month of May 2019. It was noted that beyond supply, the corporation continued to diligently monitor the daily stock of petrol to achieve smooth distribution of petroleum products and zero fuel queue across the nation. Within the period, a total of 60 pipeline points were vandalised which represents a remarkable 52 per cent decrease from the 125 points vandalised in April 2019.
The Atlas Cove-Mosimi and Ibadan-Ilorin pipelines accounted for 38 per cent and 23 per cent respectively and other locations accounted for the remaining 39 percent of the total breaks.
The report noted the spirited efforts by NNPC in collaboration with the local communities and other stakeholders to continuously strive to reduce and eventually eliminate this menace.
The May 2019 NNPC MFOR is the 46th in the series designed to provide greater transparency and remove the perception of opacity hitherto associated with the operations of the national oil company.
The new NNPC Management, headed by Mallam Mele Kyari, has pledged to enhance the current approach to encourage increased citizenship participation and greater accountability to the public.
