The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has disclosed that the four major investments it recently embarked upon with key upstream joint venture partners are capable of providing incremental revenue to the national treasury by over $30 billion within the next 10 years.
Speaking at the inauguration of the reconstituted NNPC Anti-Corruption Committee in Abuja on Monday, Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru, said the investments which attracted a haul of close to $3.8 billion in foreign direct investments would serve as vehicle to fast-track the prevailing post Cash-Call exit era.
The GMD listed the critical Joint Venture alternative financing upstream investments to include: The $1.2 billion multi-year drilling for 36 offshore/onshore oil wells under the NNPC/Chevron Nigeria Limited, codenamed project Cheetah and the NNPC/First E&P JV and Schlumberger tripartite $800 million alternative funding agreement for the development of the Anyalu and Madu fields in the Niger Delta.
Also listed are the agreements executed in London last week for the $1billon NNPC/SPDC JV Project Santolina and the NNPC/Chevron $780 million Project Falcon on Sonam, hitherto financed through JV Cash Call.
Dr. Baru commended the NNPC finance and technical teams for being able to attract the much needed foreign investment at a period when it has become increasingly difficult to attract foreign credit facilities.
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“These four projects alone are going to raise incremental revenues to Nigeria of over $30 billion over the life of the projects in less than 10 years. They will also serve as part of the vehicle for exiting JV Cash Calls.
“We have to pay our arrears of about $6billion that were incurred pre-2016 and we are also paying up a tranche of about $1billion 2016 arrears.
“We started in April 2017 with the payment of $400million and we will pay the balance before the anniversary of the first payment,’’ he said.
The GMD explained that the arrangement would allow the Corporation to subsequently operate from the production revenue less the first line charge to government which is the royalties and petroleum profit tax.
He said that whatever profit that accrues afterwards would be remitted to the government after deduction of production cost.
Drawing a correlation between the quest for revenue and the anti-corruption campaign, the GMD said members of staff must never allow corrupt practices to distract from the great task ahead.
The GMD traced NNPC’s involvement in the anti-corruption campaign to the year 2000 when the Federal Government directed all its Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) to establish in-house Anti-Corruption Committees.
“NNPC was the first to put one in place within a month, precisely in October 2000”, he noted.
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