By Michael Eboh

Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, yesterday, attributed the rise in its trading surplus in the month of May 2018 to the improvement in the financial performance of its subsidiaries and the high volume of crude oil production and sales in the month under review.

Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Dr Maikanti Baru

The NNPC in a statement on its April 2018 Financial and Operations Report, said its trading surplus for May 2018 rose by N0.96 billion from N17.16 billion recorded in April 2018 to N18.13 billion

According to the NNPC, the additional monthly trading surplus of N0.96 billion is mainly due to increased performance of some of the corporation’s subsidiaries,  including Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC; Petroleum Products Marketing Company, PPMC; Nigerian Pipelines and Storage Company, NPSC, and Marine Logistics.

“Within the period, the NNPC Group performance was mainly impacted by NPDC’s performance, which recorded a favourable variance of N18.22 billion due to increase in revenue with parallel decrease in expenses. This resulted in N20.93 billion net increase in the upstream gas and power surplus,” the NNPC noted.

The NNPC further declared that the increase in performance was bolstered by the relatively high production volumes of 1.97 million barrels per day in April 2018, which was sold in May, 2018, thereby reducing cost per unit.