The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)  says its subsidiary, Nigerian Petroleum Development company (NPDC) is targeting oil production of 500,000 barrel per day by 2020.

The Corporation disclosed this in its December monthly Financial and Operations Report released in Abuja on Sunday.

It said that the NPDC recently had average weekly production of 332,000 bpd which was the main driver of the positive outlook for the corporation.

” NNPC posted trading surplus of ₦12.13 billion in December last year, a leap from recent past performances.

” This is due to the positive swing to higher revenue numbers posted by the corporation’s upstream subsidiary, the NPDC.

“The NPDC targets 500,000 bpd production in 2020,” it said.

It said that as at December 2018, vandals pushed pipeline breaches across the country by 34 percentage point.

It noted that within the period, 257 pipeline points were vandalised, out of which one pipeline point failed to be welded and six points were ruptured.

“NNPC recorded 197 breaches on its pipelines in November last year.

” Ibadan-Ilorin, Mosimi-Ibadan and Atlas Cove-Mosimi network accounted for 90, 69 and 57 compromised points, approximately 34 per cent, 26 per cent and 22 per cent of the vandalised points.

“Aba-Enugu pipeline link accounted for seven per cent, with other locations accounting for the remaining 11 per cent of the pipeline breaks, ” the report revealed.

It noted that in spite of the activities of the pipeline marauders, the corporation continued to diligently monitor the daily stock of petrol, to achieve smooth distribution of petroleum products and zero fuel queue across the Nation.

The report disclosed that 1.80 billion litres of PMS, translating to 58.17m litres/day were supplied for the month under review.

“Overall, during the month under review, 1.96 billion litres of white products were distributed and sold by NNPC Downstream subsidiary, Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), compared with 1.09 billion litres in the market in the November 2018.

“This comprised 1.94 billion litres of PMS, 0.0070 billion litres of kerosene and 0.014 billion litres of diesel.

“Total sale of white products for the period December 2017 to December 2018, stood at 21.84 billion litres and PMS accounted for 20.17 billion litres or 92.36 per cent, ” it said

In terms of value, the report revealed that ₦241.46 billion was made on the sale of white products by PPMC in December 2018, compared to ₦146.56 billion sales in the November 2018.

“Total revenues generated from the sales of white products for the period December 2017 to December 2018 stood at ₦2,778.32 billion, with PMS contributing about 89.63 per cent of the total sales with a value of ₦2,490 billion,”it added

it noted that in spite of the disturbing reports of breaches on its assets, the corporation on the whole posted a positive outlook in December, 2019.

It noted that natural gas production increased by 12.22 per cent at 240.64 billion cubic feet, compared to output in November 2018.

This, it said, translated to an average daily production of 8,021.21 mmscfd.

“The daily average natural gas supply to gas power plants hiked by 5.36 per cent to 774 mmscfd, equivalent to power generation of 3,131MW.

“Out of the 240.59bcf of gas supplied in December 2018, a total of 151.13bcf of gas was commercialised, consisting of 38.61bcf and 112.52bcf for the domestic and export market.

“This translates to a supply of 1,245.48 mmscfd of gas to the domestic market and 3,748.47 mmscfd of gas to the export market for the month,” it said.

According to the report , it implies that 62.61 per cent of the average daily gas produced is commercialised while the balance of 37.39 per cent is re-injected, used as upstream fuel gas or flared.

“Gas flare rate was 9.15 per cent for the month under review, that is 729.55 mmscfd compared with average gas flare rate of 9.92 per cent.

That is 777.37mmscfd for the period December 2017 to December.