The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has disclosed in its Monthly Financial and Operations Report (MFOR) for March, 2020 that it recorded a trading deficit of N9.53 billion for March 2020, down from the N3.95billion surplus posted in February 2020.

A statement from the corporation Wednesday said the over 300 per cent decline in March 2020 earnings was primarily due to the huge decrease of 181 per cent in the National Oil Company's Upstream Subsidiary, Nigerian Petroleum Development Company's (NPDC) owing to the decline in crude oil prices precipitated by the Coronavirus-induced global slowdown.

The NNPC's MFOR indicated a total crude oil and gas export sale of $256.19million in March 2020 which decreased by 30.89 per cent, compared to last month's, adding that of the total sales, crude oil export sales contributed $184.59million (72.05 per cent) of the dollar transactions compared with $281.14million contribution in February, while the export gas sales amounted to $71.60million in the month.

March 2019 to March 2020 crude oil and gas transactions indicated that crude oil and gas worth $4.95billion was exported.

On pipeline vandalism, the National Oil Company reported, in a statement signed by the corporation's Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Dr. Kennie Obateru, that there was a 47 percent decrease in pipeline vandalism, as within the period under review, 19 pipeline points were vandalised, as compared to the 32 points recorded in the previous month.

Giving its account on gas, the MFOR revealed that 218.37billion Cubic Feet (BCF) of natural gas was produced in March 2020, translating to an average daily production of 7493.65Million Standard Cubic Feet per Day (mmscfd).

The statement said 3,119.89BCF of gas was produced for the period March 2019 to March 2020, representing an average daily production of 7,912.05mmscfd during the period, and from that period-to-date production from Joint Ventures (JVs), Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) and NPDC contributed about 69.37 per cent, 21.67 per cent and 8.95 per cent, respectively, to the total national gas production.

Out of the 218.37BCF of gas supplied in March 2020, 120.73BCF of gas was commercialised, and 3,817.40mmscfd of gas supplied to the export market for the month.

'In the downstream, to ensure continuous availability of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise called petrol, and effective distribution of the product across the country, 1.73billion litres of PMS, translating to 59.72mn liters/day were supplied for the month,' the report added.

© Pakistan Press International, source Asianet-Pakistan