The Group Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mallam Mele Kyari has announced that the NNPC as a corporation grew its profit after tax and assets from N287 billion and N15.86 trillion in 2020, to N674 billion and N16.3 trillion in 2021, respectively.
Kyari said in Abuja that the 2021 profit is contained in the Group Audited Financial Statement of the oil firm for the year ended 31st December 2021.
He also said that all major trunk lines conveying crude oil to export terminals were currently shut down in order to avert further oil theft in the Niger Delta.
He was, however, quick to state that efforts by the oil firm, security agencies and surveillance contractors were paying off, as about 400,000 barrels of crude would be added to the country’s output in the next few days.
The NNPC GMD said: “In September 2021, Mr. President graciously approved the publication of the 2020 NNPC Group Audited Financial Statement, in which NNPC declared a profit after tax of N287 billion for the first time in its 44 years.
“Despite our challenging operating environment, we strongly believe that NNPC has the potential to sustainably deliver better value to its esteemed shareholders.
“Today I am happy to announce that the Board of NNPC Limited has approved 2021 audited financial statements, and NNPC progressed to a new performance level, from N287 billion profit in 2020 to a N674 billion profit after tax in 2021, climbing higher by 134.8 percent year-on-year profit growth”.
He further said: “The group’s financial position recorded an increase in total assets from N15.86 trillion in 2020 to N16.27 trillion in 2021, while our total liabilities decreased by 8.3 per cent from N14.68 trillion in 2020 to N13.46 trillion in 2021.
“Our shareholders fund position grew to N2.81 trillion, representing 144 percent year-on-year. The performance would have been greater if the operations in the year under review were free from incessant vandalism, crude oil and products’ theft among others”.
Asked to state the main drivers of the profit, Kyari replied: “Our core business is upstream, gas and power. So the key drivers to this performance are coming from the upstream and the gas and power”.
On the amount of crude oil being lost to theft and why it had been difficult to contain oil theft, Kyari said that though oil production had slumped, not all reported volumes were stolen.
He explained: “Today, our production is around 1.2 million barrels per day. We have proven capacity and this was seen in 2020, where our production, without any intervention, peaked at 2.49 million barrels per day.
“That means we have capacity, without doing anything extra, to produce up to 2.49mbpd. But since COVID-19 abated and, of course, the issues around the acts of vandals returned, we saw this gradual decline in our production to the point of this 1.2mbpd production currently.
“That means that you can easily produce up to 2.49mbpd but you couldn’t do it because of the acts of vandals. Now, this doesn’t mean that the difference between 2.49mbpd and 1.2mbpd is stolen. No. It is far from this”.
