The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) last year recorded a trade surplus of N80.57 billion. However, a deficit of N5.46 billion was posted for January and August. All of these came as cases of pipeline vandalism rose to 2,048 nationwide during the period.
The corporation’s Financial and Operations Report for 2018 indicated that the nefarious activities of the vandals peaked at 257 in December. The figure increased by 34 per cent over the tallies of the rest 11 months.

According the document, 216 pipeline points were burst in January; 148 in February; March witnessed 224; April had 116; 82 got affected in May while June registered 174.

Two hundred and four cases came up in July; 86 in August; 125 for September; 219 went to October and 197 happened in November.

It noted that more incidents occurred in the Niger Delta. The December statistics showed that Ibadan-Ilorin, Mosimi-Ibadan and Atlas Cove-Mosimi networks accounted for 90, 69 and 57 compromised points or approximately 34 per cent, 26 per cent and 22 per cent.

Aba-Enugu pipeline link registered seven per cent while other locations were 11 per cent of the breaks.

Despite the challenge, the NNPC said it continued the diligent monitoring of the daily stock of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) also known as petrol for smooth distribution and zero fuel queues across the federation.

The report said 1.80 billion litres of petrol, translating to 58.17m litres/day, were supplied for the month.

Also in December, 1.96 billion litres of white products were distributed and sold by the national oil agency’s downstream subsidiary, the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), compared with the 1.09 billion litres of the previous month.

This comprised 1.94 billion litres of PMS; 0.0070 billion litres of kerosene and 0.014 billion litres of diesel.

Total output of the products for December 2017 to December 2018 was 21.84 billion litres and PMS contributed 20.17 billion litres or 92.36 per cent.

In value terms, ₦241.46billion was made from their sale in the 12th month of last year in contrast to the ₦146.56 billion figure of November.

Besides, N2,778.32 billion was generated from the products from December 2017 to the succeeding period of last year. PMS added about 89.63 per cent, raking in ₦2.490 billion.

The corporation noted that it achieved a positive outlook in the last month of Q4 2018 the disturbing development notwithstanding.

In that particular month alone, the NNPC posted an impressive trade surplus of ₦12.13 billion.

The report attributed the positive swing to higher financial figures from the corporation’s upstream subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC).

The 41st monthly document cited NPDC’s continued revenue drive arising from recent average weekly production of 332,000bpd as the main driver of the positive result.

The subsidiary targets 500,000bpd output in 2020.