The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation says it has achieved 99.7 per cent reduction in its loss profile from N803bn in 2018 to N1.7bn in 2019.
The corporation published its 2018 Audited Financial Statement five months ago.
The corporation’s spokesman, Kennie Obateru, quoted NNPC Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Umar Ajiya, in a statement issued in Abuja on Thursday as saying that the 2019 Audited Financial Statement would soon be published on the corporation’s website.
Providing insight into the 2019 audit report, Ajiya said the general administrative expenses witnessed a 22 per cent dip from N894bn in 2018 to N696bn in 2019.
He said majority of the subsidiaries posted improved performance and outlined them to include the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited, which recorded N479bn profit in 2019 compared to N179bn in 2018.
This represents 167 per cent increase.
Ajiya said the Integrated Data Sciences Limited recorded N23bn profit in 2019 compared to N154m in 2018, representing 14, 835 per cent increase.
Also, the Petroleum Products Marketing Company recorded N14.2bn profit in 2019 compared to N9.3bn in 2018, representing 52 per cent increase.
The refineries, however, maintained the same level of losses as in 2018.
Ajiya said the losses would reduce significantly in 2020 due to cost optimisation drive of the oil firm.
The CFO explained that the performance in the 2019 financial year was driven mainly by cost optimisation, contracts renegotiation and operational efficiency.
The Group Managing Director, NNPC, Mele Kyari, had promised to sustain the publication of the corporation’s Audited Financial Statements.
In another development, the oil firm said on Thursday that the Asa North-Ohaji South gas project, a green field gas condensate development project, was expected to produce 600 million standard cubic feet of gas per day.
It said this was equivalent of approximately 2.4 Gigawatts of electricity for the country.
Kyari, who disclosed this in a statement, commended the imminent completion of the Obiafu-Obrikom-Oben gas pipeline project which would help commercialise over two billion cubic feet of gas per day.
He said the initiative of the Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria to facilitate the optimal use of natural gas to drive industrial growth aligned with government’s aspiration of prioritising gas development for economic growth, power generation and industrialisation of Nigeria.