By Adewole Kehinde
The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari has continued to reiterate his commitment to conducting the business and operations of the Corporation in a transparent manner, with a view to placing it on the path of profitability.
Since he assumed office, he had taken calculated steps to ensure more openness in the activities of the Corporation and the Transparency, Accountability and Performance Excellence (TAPE) agenda has brought about greater transparency and accountability in NNPC’s management of Nigerian oil and gas revenues to date.
At an award ceremony in 2020, he renewed his commitment to transparency by saying, “I want to assure you that NNPC under my leadership will continue to be transparent in its operations, render complete and timely financial statements to all stakeholders and be repositioned for profitability for the benefit of over 200 million Nigerians”.
Kyari’s mission for launching the Transparency, Accountability and Performance Excellence (TAPE) agenda is to ensure all embrace the sweeping call for accountability in the use of resources entrusted to the top management of NNPC, under his leadership.
So far, some of the successes recorded under the TAPE agenda include the publication of the 2018 and 2019 NNPC Audited Financial Statements (AFS).
The Transparency, Accountability and Performance Excellence Agenda brought a lot of commendations and encouragement for the NNPC leadership to do better in the coming years.
No wonder the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives (EITI), a multi-stakeholder coalition, that promotes extractives transparency and accountability in over 50 countries commended the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari, for honouring his commitment to promote and deepen the culture of transparency and accountability in the Corporation.
In a letter addressed to Kyari, the EITI’s Executive Director, Mark Robinson, commented: “The NNPC has set a good example and could lead in championing transparency for other NOCs in Africa.”
Recognising NNPC’s commitment to the EITI Principles, the global body invited Mallam Kyari to speak at its virtual workshop on the topic “Learning from Mainstreaming Disclosure Efforts.”
The workshop explored further opportunities for making the systematic disclosure of extractive data the norm.
The EITI also welcomed NNPC’s transparency efforts, such as the monthly publication of its Financial and Operations Reports since 2016 as well as publication of the Corporation’s 2018 and 2019 Audited Financial Statements (AFS).
These efforts demonstrate the corporation’s continued commitment to openness in its business dealings according to EITI.
According to Robinson, “a review of the group’s Audited Financial Statement shows that NNPC has reduced its losses by 99.7% from N803 billion in 2018 to N1.7 billion in 2019 which is attributable to a huge increase in profit from the operations of the subsidiaries.
This is an indication of good practice and commitment to principles of transparency and accountability.”
In its letter, the EITI further affirmed its support for the NNPC in tailoring monthly financial and operations reports and financial statements in line with the EITI Standard and Expectations for EITI supporting companies.
It highlighted the opportunity for the NNPC to champion discussions on upstream contract disclosure in Nigeria.
Mallam Kyari had made opening the books of the Corporation a cardinal aspect of its Management under its Transparency, Accountability and Performance Excellence (TAPE) Initiative which he launched on assumption of office in July, 2019.
Kyari’s transparency was also extended to the media when he challenged them on scrutinising the operation of the corporation, adding that it would continue to do its best to be accountable and transparent.
“I have said it times without number that the NNPC is never afraid of any scrutiny. We will continue to play our strategic role as a key enabler of Nigeria’s economy.
“Our commitment toward entrenching Transparency, Accountability and best-in-class Performance Excellence (TAPE) in all our operations is still unshakeable.
“Since coming on board, we have been very open in our dealings with all our partners and stakeholders.
“From the unprecedented publication of our Audited Financial Statement (ATS) and monthly financial and operational reports to crude term contracts and several other bids and contracting processes.
“We are not relenting until this great corporation attains global excellence,” Kyari said.
There is no doubt that Kyari’s TAPE initiative is indeed commendable as it aims to ensure that no room exists for the kind of under-hand dealings that were associated with the NNPC operations in the past.
The Agenda has been ensuring that both management and operations staff carries out their duties with the highest level of ethical standards in order to break away from the old perception of the Corporation as a centre of sleaze.
Last week, the Corporation’s Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Dr. Kennie Obateru announced a total export receipt for crude oil and gas valued at $120.49 million for the month of September contained in the September 2020 edition of the NNPC Monthly Financial and Operations Report (MFOR).
The $120.49 million crude oil and gas export receipt is a 16.28 per cent improvement on the $100.88 million posted in August 2020.
The report showed that out of the figure, proceeds from crude oil amounted to $85.40 million while gas and miscellaneous receipts stood at $25.31 million and $9.78 million respectively.
The September 2020 MFOR also indicated a trading surplus of ₦28.38 billion slightly lower than the ₦29.60 billion surplus in August 2020.
The marginal reduction in surplus, according to the report, was as a result of lower contribution from the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) which recorded zero crude oil lifting from the Okono Okpoho facility during the month due to ongoing repairs.
In the gas sector, a total of 223.82billion cubic feet (bcf) of natural gas was produced in the month under review translating to an average daily production of 7,460.80million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd).
For the period September 2019 to September 2020, a total of 3,039.05bcf of gas was produced representing an average daily production of 7,730.35mmscfd during the period. Period-to-date production from Joint Ventures (JVs), Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) and NPDC contributed about 69.10%, 20.29% and 10.61% respectively to the total national gas production.
Out of the 221.91bcf of gas supplied in September 2020, a total of 140.45bcf was commercialized, consisting of 36.37bcf and 104.08bcf for the domestic and export markets respectively.
This translates to a total supply of 1,212.17mmscfd of gas to the domestic market and 3,469.45mmscfd of gas supplied to the export market for the month.
This implies that 63.29% of the average daily gas produced was commercialized while the balance of 36.71% was re-injected, used as upstream fuel gas or flared. Gas flare rate was 6.66% for the month under review (i.e. 492.93mmscfd compared with average gas flare rate of 5.84% i.e. 439.90 mmscfd for the period of September 2019 to September 2020).
To ensure effective supply and distribution of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) across the country, a total of 0.59bn litres of PMS translating to 19.59mn liters/day was supplied for the month in the downstream sector.
In line with the Corporation’s commitment of becoming more accountable, transparent and driven by performance excellence, the Corporation has continued to sustain effective communication with stakeholders through the MFOR and other reports published on its website and in national dailies.
Adewole Kehinde is the Publisher of Swift Reporters and Chairman of the Online Reporters Association of Nigeria. He can be reached via 08166240846, 08123608992
