Uche Usim, Abuja
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Wednesday announced a trading surplus of N13.23 billion in October 2019, representing an increase of 54 per cent on the N8.59billion surplus posted last September.
The oil company, in a release by its acting Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Samson Makoji, explained that the figures contained in the recently released October 2019 edition of the NNPC Monthly Financial and Operations Report (MFOR), reflect the sustained streak of positive results in the operations of the National Oil Company.
To underline the increasing fortunes of the corporation in recent times, the September 2019 trading surplus of N8.59 billion, in turn, indicated a significant increase of 65 per cent compared to the N5.2 billion surplus posted in August 2019, even as that beat the N4.26 billion surplus posted in July 2019, reflecting an increase of 22 per cent.
The NNPC said the increase of 54 per cent trading surplus in October 2019 accounts of the corporation was majorly attributable to improved trading surplus posted by its flagship upstream subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC).
The 51st edition of the MFOR states a total crude oil and gas export sales of $483.25 million in October 2019; which is an increase of 35.77 per cent, compared to the previous month, implying that in the month under review, crude oil export sales contributed $396.94 million (82.14 per cent) of the dollar transactions, compared with $267.97 million contribution in the September, 2019, even as the export gas sales for the month amounted to $86.32 million. Overall, the October 2018 to October 2019 crude oil and gas transactions indicated that crude oil and gas worth $5.49 billion was exported.
In the downstream sector, to ensure sustained PMS supply and effective distribution across the country, 1.16 billion litres of PMS, translating to 37.3 million litres/day were supplied for the month.
NNPC stated in the monthly report that it had continued to diligently monitor the daily stock of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise called petrol, in order to achieve smooth distribution of petroleum products and zero fuel queue nationwide.
The report says that in October 2019, 35 vandalised-pipeline points, representing a decrease of 81 per cent from the 186 vandalised-points in September 2019 were recorded.