Yemisi Izuora
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has said that it engaged seven firms to lift crude oil in line With laid down contracting procedure.
According the Corporation the companies collectively lifted a total of 8.8 Million Barrels of crude oil valued at $436.35 Million as at 30th October 2017.
The clarification followed a media report which claimed that 67.2Million barrels were lifted.
A statement by NNPC read, “The attention of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has been drawn to a story in a national weekly alleging
that the following Companies: AMG Petroenergy Limited, Brittania-U, Cassiva Energy, Hyde Energy, Masters Energy, Bono Energy Ltd and Sahara are Ghost Companies and have lifted a total of about 67.2Million Barrels of Nigerian Crude oil valued at about $3.5 billion between January-October 2017 from NNPC.
Contrary to the assertions, NNPC duly entered into the 2017/2018 crude oil term contracts with the Companies in their appropriate registered corporate names as follows, AMG Petroenergy Limited 191430, Brittania-U Nigeria Ltd 284481, Cassiva Ltd 1091598, Hyde Energy Ltd 1051332, Masters Energy Oil& Gas Ltd, 616872, Bono Energy Ltd, 609822, Sahara Energy Resources Ltd, 318527″.
The above clarifications NNPC said demonstrate that the allegations are not only baseless but intended to mislead the public while disparaging the Corporation.
The Corporation maintained that all crude oil lifting transactions are backed by irrevocable letters of credit issued by investment grade banks and, therefore, all payments are pre-secured, and that all liftings by the Seven (7) companies and all other off-takers were bound by these requirements.