The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is planning to allocate 80 per cent of its crude Oil lifting deal to NNPC Trading, an arm of the corporation which evolved from the merger of its trading companies.

Managing Director of NNPC Trading Limited, Ibrahim Waya, revealed this in an interview published in the corporation’s quarterly magazine. NNPC Trading currently handles 40 per cent of the country’s oil lifting. In January this year, the Federal Government awarded one-year crude lifting contracts, covering about 1.31 million barrels per day, to 39 companies — 18 of them Nigerian, 11 international trading houses, five foreign refineries, three national oil companies and two NNPC trading arms.

All the contracts are for 32,000 barrels per day (bpd) except Duke Oil Ltd, an arm of the NNPC, which trades 90,000 barrels per day. Some of the local beneficiaries, whose share of oil lifting contracts will be affected, are Oando Trading, Sahara, MRS Oil and Gas, A.A. Rano, Bono, Masters Energy, Eterna Oil and Gas, Cassiva Energy, Hyde Energy, Brittania-U, Northwest Petroleum and Shoreline Limited. Some of the international oil traders are Trafigura, ENOC Trading, BP Trading, Total Trading, Heritage Oil and Glencore.

India Oil Company, Sinopec of China and Saccoil of South Africa fall under the government-to-government category. But Waya said Maikanti Baru, group managing director of the NNPC, has directed NNPC Trading to take charge of 80 per cent of the deal by the end of 2018. He said: “The current management of NNPC under the watch of Dr Baru is giving us every support to jerk (jack) up our operation from 10 per cent to 40 per cent.

“And the GMD told us that what he wants to achieve for trading is that by the end of 2018, he wants NNPC trading to have 80 per cent in terms of Nigeria’s crude oil and also conversely by the end of 2018, we want to do every form of import of products, if need be to augment the local production of products through NNPC Trading.”

The Nation