- Oil sustains rally after record tenth straight fall in US inventories
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) wednesday said it earned $239.10 million from its sale of crude oil and gas in the month of November 2017.
It also said between November 2016 and November 2017, it sold crude oil and gas valued at $3.73 billion.
NNPC in a statement from its Group General Manager Public Affairs, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, in Abuja explained that this was contained in the November 2017 edition of its monthly operations and financial report.
According to it, the November crude oil earning was 25.68 per cent lower than that of the previous month of October.
It said a breakdown of the transactions showed that crude oil export sales contributed $113.97 million or 47.7 per cent of the dollar transactions compared with $227.83 million contribution in the previous month, while the export gas sales amounted to $125.13 million during the period.
According to it, a total export receipt of $201.11 million was recorded in November 2017 under its US dollar payments to Joint Venture (JV) cost recovery and Federation Account, as receipt against $277.50 million paid in October, 2017.
In this regard, it noted: “Contribution from crude oil amounted to $147.39 million while gas and miscellaneous receipt stood at $ 50.17 million and $3.55 million respectively. Of the export receipts, $121.75 million was remitted to Federation Account while $56.56 million was remitted to fund the JV cost recovery for the month of November, 2017 to guarantee current and future production.”
“A broader breakdown revealed that total export crude oil and gas receipt for the period of November, 2016 to November, 2017 stood at $3.73 billion. Out of which the sum of $2.60 billion was transferred to JV Cash Call as first line charge and the balance of $0.85 billion was paid into Federation Account,” said the corporation.
On naira payments to the Federation Account, NNPC said domestic crude oil and gas receipt during the month amounted to N135.14 billion, consisting of N127.93 billion from domestic crude oil, and the sum of N7.21 billion from domestic gas.
“Out of the naira receipt, the sum of N54.16 billion was transferred to Joint Venture Cash Call (JVCC) being a first line charge and to guarantee continuous flow of revenue stream to Federation Account.
“On the receipt from net domestic crude oil and gas, NNPC transferred the sum of N54.16 billion into Federation Account and N80.98 billion to JV cash Call for the month under review. From November 2016 to November 2017, Federation, JV, and FG for debt repayment received the sum N865.59 billion, N726.11 billion and N31.65 billion respectively,” it added.
Meanwhile, oil prices rallied on heavy volume yesterday, boosted by a record 10th straight weekly decline in U.S. crude inventories, though reduced refining activity and rising production signaled U.S. stocks could rise in coming weeks.
U.S. crude inventories fell by 1.1 million barrels last week, short of expectations, but the 10-week streak of declines represents a record, according to U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) data going back to 1982. At 411.6 million barrels, stocks are at their lowest since February 2015.
The steady draw has triggered record buying by speculators, pushing oil benchmarks to three-year highs.
According to Reuters, Brent futures gained 57 cents to $70.53 a barrel., while U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures settled up $1.14, or 1.8 percent, to $65.80. Both benchmarks were at their highest since December 2014.
More than 830,000 U.S. crude contracts changed hands, far exceeding the daily average of 618,000 contracts over the last 10 months.
