The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, yesterday, declared a profit after tax of N674 billion for the 2021 financial year, a growth of 134.8 per cent compared to N287 billion declared in 2020.
The company's total assets also grew from N15.86 trillion in 2020 to N16.27 trillion in 2022, while total liabilities fell by 8.3 per cent to N13.46 in 2021 from N14.68 trillion in 2020.
Also, the shareholders fund grew to N2.81 trillion, representing 144 per cent from the previous year.
Before turning profitable in 2020, NNPC had recorded losses of N803 billion in 2018 and N1.7 billion in 2019.
Speaking to journalists in Abuja, NNPCL Group CEO, Mele Kyari, said the growth in profit was driven by its upstream operation and its businesses in gas and power.
Kyari explained that the "performance would have been greater if the operations in the year under review were free from incessant vandalism, crude oil and product theft among other.
He noted that despite "our challenging operating environment, we strongly believe that NNPC has the potential to sustainably deliver better value to its esteemed share holders."
On what will happen to the profit, he declared: "Dividend is always governed by the dividend policy of every company. In this case, the shareholder is the country that includes 200 million Nigerians, represented by the Ministry of Petroleum Incorporated and the Ministry of Finance Incorporated in the case of NNPC Limited but for the corporation.
"The federation will decide what to do with this and currently there is a huge data between the obligations of the NNPCL and that of the corporation. We are sorting this out and it will be the decision of the shareholders to decide to either retain part of it or all of it."
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
On oil theft and vandalism, Kyari disclosed that all major oil trunk lines had been shut down due to the activities of oil thieves and pipeline vandals.
"Today our production is around 1.23 million barrels per day. We have a proven production capacity of 2.49mbpd. But since COVID abated and the acts of vandals returned, we saw this gradual decline in our production to the point of the 1.2mbpd.
"That means we can easily produce 2.49mbpd but we can't do it because of acts of vandals. Now, it doesn't mean that the difference between 2.49m and 1.23m is stolen. As we speak, all our major trunk lines are shutdown, which means we are not flowing crude oil in these lines.
"We could do it and it doesn't mean crude is stolen. When the lines are running, you can lose substantial part of that volume, up to 200,000 barrels.
"In actual losses today, our budget level plan is to produce at 1.8mbpd and if you are doing 1.23m, it means you are losing the difference between 1.23m and 1.8m which is around 600,000 barrels per day. This is an opportunity lost, not stolen", he added.
