NNPC owes IOCs $2.84bn over 11 months of 2015

The insolvency of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), has been brought to the fore, with its inability to fund its obligation to International Oil Companies (IOCs), as it owed its Joint Venture (JV) partners $2.839 billion (about N567.76 billion) between January and November 2015, Vanguard reports.

The NNPC, in its Monthly Financial and Operations Report for November 2015, stated that it was only able to pay $3.395 billion to fund its JV cash call obligation with IOCs, instead of a total of $6.774 billion.

The huge indebtedness to the IOCs in the JV arrangement was irrespective of the fact that the NNPC last remitted dollar proceeds from its crude oil exports to the Federation Account in the month of March 2015.

The NNPC blamed the development on its declining crude oil export revenue, occasioned by the persistent drop in the price of crude oil on the international market. According to the NNPC, the crude oil export proceeds are no longer sufficient to service the JV Cash call obligation and remission to the Federation Account.