By Oke Peter
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) posted a total export sale of crude oil and gas of $490.03 million in February 2019 which is 32.45 percent higher than the previous month’s sale.
NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, in a release of the February 2019 edition of the corporation’s Monthly Financial and Operations Report (MFOR) in Abuja, said Crude oil export sales contributed $350.29million (71.48 percent) of the dollar transactions compared with $240.23 million contribution in the previous month.
The report, the 43rd edition of the NNPC MFOR, explained that the export Gas sales amounted to $139.74 million in the month under review, stating that the February 2018 to February 2019 crude oil and gas transactions indicated that crude oil and gas worth of $5.94 billion was exported.
The report announced a 40 percent drop in recorded cases of oil pipeline vandalism in February, 2019 when compared with the reported incidents of January 2019.
A breakdown of the report indicated that in February 2019, a total of 137 pipeline points were vandalised which translates to 40 per cent drop from the 230 points vandalised in January 2019. It was revealed that Mosimi-Ibadan petroleum products pipeline accounted for 72 percent of the breaks while Kaduna, Port-Harcourt, Warri and Gombe lines made up the remaining 28 percent.
The report attributed the drop in the line break to efforts by NNPC, the local communities and other stakeholders to reduce and eventually eliminate pipeline vandalism.
To ensure continuous increase in petrol supply and effective distribution across the country, 1.27bn litres translating to 45.53million liters/day were supplied for the month.
The MFOR explained that in the Downstream Sector, the corporation has continued to diligently monitor the daily stock of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), otherwise called petro, to achieve smooth distribution of petroleum products and zero fuel queue across the nation.
In terms of natural gas off-take, commercialisation and utilidation, the records indicated that within the period, daily average natural gas supply to gas power plants increased by 8.23 percent to 819.85million standard cubic feet (mmscf), equivalent to power generation of 3,336MW. The figure is an improvement from the January 2019 record where an average of 757mmscfd was supplied to generate 3,124MW.
Also, out of the 223.23billion cubic feet (bcf) of gas supplied in February 2019, a total of 127.62bcf of gas was commercialised consisting of 37.77bcf and 89.85bcf for the domestic and export market respectively. This translates to a total supply of 1,349.03mmscfd of gas to the domestic market and 3,780.24mmscfd of gas supplied to the export market for the month.
This implies that 57.17 percent of the average daily gas produced was commercialised while the balance of 42.83 percent was re-injected, used as upstream fuel gas or flared. Gas flare rate was 9.51 percent for the month under review i.e. 757.94mmscfd, compared with average gas flare rate of 9.52 percent i.e. 750.01mmscfd for the period February 2018 to February 2019.
