By John Meze
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has announced an increase of 80.12per cent in trading surplus for the month of December 2020 or ₦24.19billion compared to the ₦13.43billion surplus recorded in November 2020.
This is contained in the December 2020 edition of the NNPC Monthly Financial and Operations Report (MFOR), as captured in a press release by the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the Corporation, Dr. Kennie Obateru.
Trading surplus or trading deficit is derived after deduction of the expenditure from the revenue in the period under review.
According to the report, the operating revenue of the NNPC Group in December 2020 as compared to November 2020 increased by 33.44 per cent or N137.00billion to stand at N546.65billion. Similarly, expenditure for the month increased by 27.54percent or N112.81billion to stand at N522.47billion. The December 2020 expenditure as a proportion of revenue is 0.96 as against 0.97 in November 2020.
The report indicated that the 80.12per cent increase is due mainly to the significant rise in the profit of NNPC’s flagship Upstream entity, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) amid improved market fundamentals and strong global demand for crude oil.
Other contributory factors to the robust trading surplus recorded in the month under review include the improved performance by the Nigerian Gas Marketing Company (NGMC), the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), the National Engineering and Technical Company (NETCO) and Duke Oil Incorporated which recorded noticeable gains in their operations.
In the Downstream, 2.26 billion litres of white products were sold and distributed by PPMC in the month of December 2020 compared to 1.7 2billion litres in the month of November 2020.
This comprised 2.254billion litres of petrol, translating to 72.72million litres/day, 11.40 million litres of Automotive Gas Oil (diesel) and 0.48 million litres of kerosene. Total sale of white products for the period of December 2019 to December 2020 stood at 18.456billion litres and petrol accounted for 18.325billion litres or 99.29%. In monetary terms, the volume translates to a value of ₦288.77billion recorded on the sale of white products by PPMC in the month of December 2020 compared to ₦226.08 billion sales in November 2020.
Total revenues generated from the sales of white products for the period December 2019 to December 2020 stood at ₦2.217triilion, where petrol contributed about 99.09percent of the total sales with a value of ₦2.197trillion.
In December 2020, 43 pipeline points were vandalized representing about 18.60percent increase from the 35 points recorded in November 2020. Mosimi Area accounted for 56 per cent of the vandalized points while Kaduna Area and Port Harcourt accounted for the remaining 33percent and 12percent respectively.
In the Gas Sector, natural gas production in December 2020 stood at 213.34Billion Cubic Feet (BCF) translating to an average daily production of 6,881.83million standard cubic feet of gas per day (mmscfd).
The daily average natural gas supply to power plants increased by 3.52percent to 816mmscfd, equivalent to power generation of 3,445MW. Out of the 208.61BCF of gas supplied in December 2020, a total of 146.72BCF was commercialized; consisting of 42.90BCF and 103.82BCF for the domestic and export market, respectively. This translates to a total supply of 1,383.93mmscfd of gas to the domestic market and 3,349.00mmscfd of gas supplied to the export market for the month. This implies that 70.33percent of the average daily gas produced was commercialized while the balance of 29.67percent was re-injected, used as upstream fuel gas or flared. Gas flare rate was 6.80percent for the month under review (i.e. 457.25 mmscfd) compared to average gas flare rate of 7.15percent (i.e. 538.59 mmscfd) for the period December 2019 to December 2020.