Corporate affairs commision

CAC Grants Six-Month Extension On Unallotted Share Capital

Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) has secured the approval of the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Adeniyi Adebayo to extend to 31 December 2021, the deadline for existing companies to fully issue any unallotted share capital. 

READ MORE: Stock Market Gains N88.980, Ends Week Bullish

 It will be recalled that Regulation 13 of the Companies Regulations, 2021 had fixed an initial deadline of 30 June 2020 for all companies in Nigeria to comply with this requirement.

 The CAC also noted that any unissued share capital after 31 December 2022 will be derecognised from a company’s share capital until such shares are re-issued or reduced.

The Trade and Investment Minister had on 31 December 2020 approved the Companies Regulations 2021 pursuant to Section 4 of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA) 2020.

 The CR 2021, which was published by the Corporate Affairs Commission, replaces the Companies Regulations, 2012 issued pursuant to the repealed CAMA, 1990.

 The Regulations includes provisions that are aimed at leveraging technology to automate certain CAC’s administrative processes, clarifying certain compliance requirements of the CAMA 2020, and providing comprehensive governance and procedural framework, in line with global regulatory best practices.

 Some significant changes highlighted in the Regulations are: ‘Authentication of Documents’ (CR 2021) provides for the automation of CAC’s pre-and post-incorporation procedures in line with the Federal Government’s mandate of improving the ease of doing business in Nigeria.

These procedures include electronic authentication of documents submitted through the Commission’s web portal, delivery of electronic certified true copies of documents in lieu of physical documents and online real-time update of changes to information already submitted to the Commission, among others.

 Under the Minimum Issued Capital Paragraph 13 of the Regulations mandates, all existing companies are advised to issue all unissued shares in their capital before June 30, 2021.

 The Registrar General of the CAC, Garba Abubakar in a recent stakeholder session organised by the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators of Nigeria (ICSAN) on the implementation of the Companies Regulations 2021, clarified that Paragraph 13 gives effect to the provisions of Sections 124 and 868 of CAMA 2020 which redefined share capital as “issued share capital”.

Consequently, the concept of “unissued share capital” which derived from the repealed CAMA 1990 and allowed a company to have issued share capital that is less than its authorised shared capital, has effectively been obviated by CAMA 2020.

Further, Paragraph 13 of the CR 2021 imposes a daily default penalty on a company and every officer of the company that fails to meet the June 30, 2021 deadline as follows: ₦250 for small companies, ₦500 for private companies limited by shares other than small companies, and ₦1,000 for public companies.

 It is however debatable how the implementation of the daily default penalty will apply to companies that fail to meet the deadline given that the Act did not prescribe any penalty for non-compliance. Nonetheless, the Registrar General of the CAC noted that companies that are unable to meet the June 30, 2021, deadline may apply for up to a maximum of 2 years extension. It is expected that the Commission will issue an official public notice in this regard soon.

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Venture Capital

Charting A New Course for Venture Capitals and Early-Stage Funding

How do you build successful businesses? The short answer is it’s hard. Yet from the outside, many assume investing and building successful startups is a pretty straightforward activity. Their thinking: money conquers all challenges, and nobody is more flushed with cash than Venture Capitals VCs.

READ ALSO: KWIRS generated N9.5bn n Q1

They assume that once VCs identify the companies building innovative products, they’ll simply throw money at them and let them work. In the future, if the company is a success, think IPO or Paystack-Stripe acquisition, the VC walks away with a decent return despite adding minimal value to the growth timeline.

But many times, this never happens. There’s a higher chance that a startup will fail than it getting any traction at all. And startups fail all the time; it’s just the nature of the business world. According to Fortune Magazine, nine out of 10 startups fail. That’s why some investors use the “spray-and-pray” model of investing to increase their chances of cashing out with that golden startup that saves the rest of their portfolio.

In recent years, more investors and firms are harkening on to an old truth. Maybe money is not the single most important thing companies need. Perhaps they need other kinds of support to build high-growth ventures even at the early stages? What if an investor could do more than just dole out money to help a young company make it to the finish line?

This is a reality many investors may need to accept. They must be ready to roll up their sleeves and help portfolio companies execute, especially at the early stages. To do this effectively, more VC firms should, and indeed a few are creating something called venture builders.

Read Also: Funding options for startups to large businesses

A venture builder, sometimes called an incubator, a startup studio, or venture studio, is an organisation that develops new companies or startup ideas and dedicates resources and teams to nurture the product until maturity.

Venture builders take different forms. But two models stand out, with the major difference between them being the origin of the idea.

In the first model, venture builders are out chasing innovative startups for investments. The goal is to tap into a wide variety of ideas from entrepreneurs, pick winners, and help them grow their businesses leveraging the builder’s in-house resources. This model overlaps with traditional VC investing, but the difference is the investor’s level of involvement.

However, the second model is slightly more popular. Here the venture builder conceives the idea for a startup or a bunch of ideas in-house and then assembles a team to execute these ideas while supporting them with much-needed resources, expertise, infrastructure and network.

One familiar venture builder is Rocket Internet, which has incubated many startups, including publicly traded food delivery company, HelloFresh and Jumia Group, the Pan-African retailer and its basket of marketplace services. Other notable venture builders include Founders Factory, a startup studio that has built over 35 companies from scratch and GreenTec. There are also famous examples of corporate organisations deploying the venture builder model. One organisation is Opera which housed OPay for a few months in 2018. Alphabet, the parent company of search engine, Google has also deployed significant resources on moonshot projects, including Waymo, the driverless car startup.

But the venture builder approach isn’t without its drawbacks, and it does receive a fair amount of criticism. For one thing, they seem expensive and may not necessarily be the best use of financial and human resources for venture firms—many of which tend to have lean teams focused on deal-making and due diligence.

A good way to get around this criticism is to limit the number of startups entering their portfolio. Unlike accelerator programs and Venture Capitals that tend to back dozens or even hundreds of startups each year, venture builders are most optimal if they support a few companies annually. Three to five is fair enough to ensure the builder provides the best value with the resources they render.

The venture builder model certainly offers merits for early-stage innovation. One notable rationale is they test and validate ideas quickly in-house. After all, according to CB Insights, 42% of startups fail when due to a lack of product-market-fit. Venture builders engage in few core activities: business ideation, building teams, capital allocation and team operations. Each of these activities is key. And like regular startups, builders must prioritise similar growth development models such as prototyping and leveraging design thinking and agile process management. Execution and speed are equally crucial to the venture building model to validate ideas and scale quickly.

These resources aren’t cheap. Venture Capitals builders typically invest seed-stage funding in new ideas in return for a significant chunk of equity or a majority. This makes sense and could return many multiples during exits.

Beyond financial resources and access to quality networks, one crucial benefit of venture builders is they’re not shy to provide the much-needed human capital to develop and scale ideas. Talent is key to startup development, but acquiring the right talent can sometimes be expensive and time-consuming, both of which would affect startup execution timelines. CB Insights data shows 23% of startups fail because they assembled the wrong team. Venture builders reduce this challenge with their pool of skilled and experienced teams spread across various incubated startups. They also have the resources and appeal to attract top talent to scale startups to maturity.

As the new startup gains traction, venture builders should spin off the company, allowing it to grow independently and attract follow-on funding from external investors. Like regular Venture Capitals investments, venture builders can exit portfolio companies through secondary sales of equity, a stock market listing or mergers and acquisitions.

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KWIRS

KWIRS generated N9.5bn n Q1

KWIRS generated N9.5bn n Q1, to address tax default in informal sector

Shade Omoniyi, the Chairman, Kwara State Internal Revenue Service (KWIRS), has announced that the Revenue Board generated N9,598,504,939.90 in the first quarter of 2021, crediting the feat on effective adoption of technology and steady blockage of leakages within the tax administration system

READ MORE: MSMEs Contribute Over 50% Of Nigeria’s GDP, 80% Employment ― FG

She however noted that the Agency intends to broaden its tax collection base by deploying IT solutions in capturing and profiling eligible taxpayers in the informal sector of the state.

Omoniyi, who made the disclosure in Ilorin, the State capital, stated that the figure is the highest ever revenue captured in the same period since the inception of the Tax Agency, saying the estimates represented 30% of projected revenue for the year 2021.

“This is why we are taking the initiative of identifying our taxpayers through several means such as the use of ticketing model. This is especially so with the transport sector in the state.

“This feat of KWIRS in Q1, 2021 was a great improvement over the N6, 227,099,973.42 raked in, in the last quarter of 2020”, she said.

SOURCE

unesco

MSMEs Contribute Over 50% Of Nigeria’s GDP, 80% Employment ― FG

The Federal Government (FG) has reaffirmed that Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) contributes nearly 50 per cent of Nigeria Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and 80 per cent of the country’s total employment.

READ ALSO: FG Urges Women Entrepreneurs To Apply For MSMEs Survival Fund Scheme

Speaking virtually at the 7th EMPRETEC Global Summit with the theme “The Role of Entrepreneurship, MSME and EMPRETEC in post-COVID-19 Resurgence, the Federal Minister of State for Industry, Trade and Investment of Nigeria, Amb Mariam Katagum said the government had rolled out various interventions to reposition MSMEs for increased and sustained contribution to the national economy.

“As we are all aware, the MSME sector is the engine of growth of any economy, contributing to its development, job creation and export, amongst others.

“An MSMEs survey indicates that Nigeria’s SMEs contribute nearly 50 per cent of the country’s GDP and account for over 80 per cent of employment. No doubt, the sector is pivotal to Nigeria’s growth, including reducing poverty and unemployment levels.

“It has, therefore, become more apparent that supporting entrepreneurs and small businesses by creating opportunities for MSMEs to thrive is essential for increasing productivity, creating jobs, and boosting our economy.

“This is why Government is working with stakeholders across all sectors, to create the enabling environment for entrepreneurs and MSMEs to ensure that they grow now and into the future,” the Minister stated.

According to a statement by Oluwakemi Ogunmakinwa, Katagum said “the Government of Nigeria had, prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, initiated the MSMEs Clinics’ scheme as a strategy, aimed at providing support for the MSMEs in the country.

“At the clinics, which is organised in various states of the country, operators in the MSMEs space are engaged by regulators and business advisory experts, on issues ranging from entrepreneurship, skill development, finance, quality & standards, and on how to facilitate and grow their businesses and enterprises.”

The Minister further stressed that in order to achieve sustainable growth and development of MSMEs, the Federal Government had recently approved the revised National Policy on Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) which would provide the framework to resolve the challenges faced by the sector.

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CBN

AfCFTA Market Offers Nigeria $666.2bn Business Opportunities – Emefiele

The Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Godwin Emefiele has revealed that companies in Nigeria stand to benefit from a market worth $666.2 billion when the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement fully comes on stream.

READ ALSO: CBN To Sanction Dealers Who Reject Old, Lower Dollar Notes

AfCFTA is an intra-African trade agreement that was adopted on March 21, 2018, to boost Africa’s trading position in the global market by strengthening Africa’s common voice and policy space in global trade negotiations, with President Muhammadu Buhari signing the agreement in 2019 at the AU summit which held in Niamey.

Emefiele, Tuesday at the Virtual 6th Export Seminar organised by Zenith Bank Plc, said the AfCFTA has a lot to offer the country if its laudable goals and objectives are fully implemented.

Speaking on the theme; “Nigeria’s Economic Prosperity: The role of Intra- Regional Trade and Non – oil Export Initiatives”, said the AfCFTA offers a lot of opportunities for the private sector in Nigeria.

“We believe that the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) offer significant opportunities for the Nigerian private sector to expand into new markets, and seek new export opportunities, particularly in the area of Manufacturing, ICT, Agriculture and Financial services, given our growing advantage in these areas relative to our counterparts in other parts of Africa.

The CBN Governor noted that businesses in Nigeria should take advantage of the preferential access to $504.17 billion in goods and $162 billion in services.

“Full implementation of the AfCFTA is expected to give Nigerian firms preferential access to markets in Africa worth $504.17 billion in goods and $162 billion in services.

“I believe that we should seize this opportunity to ensure that Nigeria serves as a significant hub for international and domestic manufacturing companies seeking to serve the West, Central and East African Markets.

Emefiele also expressed delight at the young and energetic population of Nigeria.

“In addition, we have a very young energetic, technological savvy population that have been leveraging technological applications to improve service delivery in the areas of finance, logistics and agriculture to consumers in Nigeria.

“I believe the AFCFTA will provide an opportunity for these young talented Nigerians to expand their services across the African region. Developing trade portals that could support instant sales of goods manufactured in Nigeria to consumers in other parts of Africa is one aspect that can help to support the creation of jobs in Nigeria and improve foreign exchange inflows for the country.”

According to Emefiele, the apex bank has earmarked steps to boost the productive capacity of businesses across the country.

“Although Nigeria stands to gain from expanded trade, I believe it is also important that we pay attention to the cost that expanded trade through the AFCFTA could have on local businesses and communities.

“Smuggling of goods produced in non-African countries into Nigeria, and abuse of rules of origin have often resulted in significant job losses and displacements of workers in key sectors of our economy such as agriculture and manufacturing.

“It is vital that we work with the governing body of the AFCFTA in addressing these concerns, as it has profound implications on unemployment and security in Nigeria.”

In his welcome address, the Group Managing Director of Zenith Bank, Ebenezer Onyeagwu, lauded the economic diversification drive by the Federal Government, calling on all Nigerians to leverage on the non-oil sector to reduce over-dependence on the sector.

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Venmo

Paypal’s Venmo now permits cryptocurrency trading

Venmo, a mobile payment service owned by PayPal has announced that it has started allowing users to buy, hold and sell cryptocurrencies on its app. Just like PayPal, Venmo will support four different cryptocurrencies: Bitcoin, Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, and Litecoin, and users can carry out transactions with as little as $1 on the app

Founded in 2009, Venmo has over 70 million users and it is one of the most popular payment channels in the US. The payment platform processed around $159 billion in payments last year.

Since the app functions like a social network, adding cryptocurrency will offer a more user-friendly feel for people who love buying and selling crypto.

READ: CBN resumes $100m weekly sales for SMEs, school fees

As bigger companies show more interest in cryptocurrency, there will be wider adoption of virtual currencies in future. Venmo is the latest payment app that is offering support for cryptocurrency on its platform.

Paypal, the parent company of Venmo is one of the most active companies in the crypto space as it allows users to buy, sell and hold cryptocurrencies in their digital wallets. Paypal users can also spend their coins at millions of merchants globally.

Crypto on Venmo is enabled through PayPal’s partnership with Paxos Trust Company, a regulated provider of cryptocurrency products and services.

What they are saying

Darrell Esch, Venmo’s Senior Vice President and general manager said “Our goal is to provide our customers with an easy-to-use platform that simplifies the process of buying and selling cryptocurrencies and demystifies some of the common questions and misconceptions that consumers may have.”

SOURCE

CBN

CBN resumes $100m weekly sales for SMEs, school fees

CBN resumes $100m weekly sales for SMEs, school fees… concludes plans to resume sales to BDCs

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Wednesday said it had resumed $100 million weekly sales for school fees and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

READ ALSO: SMEDAN To Protect Intellectual Property For MSMEs

The CBN has also made complete arrangements to resume foreign exchange sales to the BDC segment of the market for business travels, personal travels, and other designated retail uses, as soon as international flights resume.

The regulator on March 26, suspended foreign exchange sales to the Bureau De Change (BDC) operators until further notice due to the Covid-19 lockdown as requested by the operators. The suspension notwithstanding, some BDCs are still active in the market.

This is in view of the gradual easing of the COVID-19 lockdown both globally and in Nigeria.

A statement signed by Isaac Okorafor, director, corporate communications department, reads “Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has resumed provision of foreign exchange to all commercial banks for onward sales to parents wishing to pay schools fees and SMEs wishing to make essential imports needed to revamp economic activities across the country. In particular, the CBN is resuming the provision of over US$100 million per week for both categories”.

With these actions, the CBN reiterated that it is adequately meeting the needs of all legitimate users, and its continued capacity to do so should not be in doubt.

There is therefore no need for panic by any end-user that could necessitate recourse to illegitimate sources and spike in foreign exchange rates, the CBN said.

Given this, the Bank has ramped up its surveillance of the foreign exchange markets for speculators, smugglers and other illegal users, and will take decisive actions against anyone/institutions involved in such nefarious activities.

Reacting to CBN’ action, Aminu Gwadabe, president of Association of Bureau De Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON) said, “Yes, it is in line as our product is cash not digital currency and our clients are travellers. In line with our scope, we engage mostly personal travelling allowance and Buisiness travelling allowance which in all scenarios demand ticket visas of our customers”.

The Naira weakened further by N5.00k as one dollar traded at N460 at the close of business on Wednesday compared with N455 traded in the morning at the black market.

The local currency lost N0.20k at the close of business as the dollar traded at N386.45k on Wednesday as against N386.25k on Tuesday at the Investors and Exporters (I&E) forex window, data from FMDQ indicated.

Naira depreciated by N2 at the retail bureaus as the dollar was trading at N467 on Wednesday from N465 quoted on Tuesday.

Gwadabe said the assurances of the apex bank and the partial return of operations in the foreign exchange market will  ensure sanity and discourage frivolous demand and panic buying which pervades the market in recent times.

He said the BDCs will return as soon as lockdown in the international airport are relaxed.

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FG Zainab Ahmed

FG Admits Revenues Crashing, Says Nigeria Faces Hard Times

The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, on Monday admitted that Nigeria’s economy was facing a difficult time, saying states must improve their internally generated revenues.

READ ALSO: FBNQuest Recommends Commercial Papers and Bonds as Stable Funding Sources for SMEs and Corporates

Ahmed, who stated this in an interview on a daily breakfast show on the Nigerian Television Authority, Good Morning Nigeria, stated that the money shared at the March  Federation Account Allocation Committee meeting was short of N50bn.

The minister was speaking on a controversy generated by a claim by the Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, that the Central Bank of Nigeria printed N60bn in March to augment the money shared at March FAAC.

But the minister and the CBN Governor last week dismissed Obaseki’s claim.

In the interview on the NTA on Monday, the finance minister stated the country’s economy was stabilising from the recession, which the country exited a few months ago.

She, however, added, “These are very difficult challenging times because revenues are low and the demand for expenditures are very high understandably because we have to keep intervening to make sure the pandemic is contained as well as the economic impact it has caused.

“In our case in Nigeria, the crash of the crude oil prices really hit us very hard in terms of revenue. We have very low revenues, we have very high expenditures. What we have done so far is just to provide some stability to make sure salaries are paid, pensions are received every month;  that we send funds to the judiciary and the legislature; that we meet our debt service obligations.

“That’s what we are doing. It also means we have had to borrow more than we have planned before the COVID-19 started because we need to still continue to invest in infrastructure using our national budget. We borrowed to invest in key projects such as roads, rail, airports, seaports and several other investments that are required in health and in education and upgrading the social standards and quality of life of our people and Nigeria is not unique as several countries of the world went into recession.

“Almost every other country has had to borrow more than it planned. It means we expanded our economy deficit very fast in 2020. 2021 is a year that we see as the year of recovery.”

According to him, government hopes to achieve a growth of three percent in 2021, adding that some of the multilateral institutions are putting it at 2.5 percent.

She stated,  “It is a very difficult time. I can explain to you how difficult it is, not just for the Federal Government but also for the states. We see increasing reductions in our FAAC revenues; FAAC revenues are the revenues that we put together every month, that are collected from both oil and non-oil sectors from the collection of the NNPC (Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation) the FIRS (the Federal Inland Revenue Service) and all other revenues collection agencies.

“ So, FAAC reduces and whenever FAAC reduces, it is a very difficult situation and in the past one year, we have tried to fall back on some specific accounts that are meant to be saved; savings that when you have such a situation, you fall back on the resources and augment.

“So, we take funds based on Mr President’s approval either from Excess Crude or Stabilisation Account or in some cases, President approved for us to take funds from LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) dividends. In the month of March, we had a shortfall of FAAC that was about N50bn; we didn’t have enough accrued in any of those accounts other than some N8.5bn that we took from exchange rate differential account so we added that and we ended up with the FAAC of N605bn.

“An average FAAC that is healthy for us is N650bn, so it means we had a shortfall of about N50bn. The states to be honest wanted us to go and borrow from the central bank to augment FAAC.”

She stated that advice by states was rejected, adding that the three levels of government were asked to manage what was available.

“So, it was very surprising when we had a sitting governor saying that the CBN had printed money for FAAC. That was very unfortunate because it was not true. The FAAC information is published so you can see the revenue contributed by each of the agency; that is what we shared.

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FBN QUEST

FBNQuest Recommends Commercial Papers and Bonds as Stable Funding Sources for SMEs and Corporates

FBNQuest Merchant Bank, the investment banking and asset management group of FBN Holdings Plc, is recommending commercial papers and bonds to corporate issuers seeking to raise working capital, expansion capital, refinance expensive debt and better match their cash obligations with revenues.

READ ALSO: Mastercard To Buy Digital ID Firm Ekata For $850m

Speaking at the latest edition of the”Leading Conversations with FBNQuest” webinar series, Oluseun Olatidoye, Head Capital Markets, FBNQuest, noted that many companies do not take advantage of Nigeria’s growing commercial paper and bond market to access stable funds that match their capital needs.

Even though interest rates have trended higher in the first quarter of this year, there is still significant scope for many companies to access cheaper and more stable funding from investors who are seeking well-run businesses with predictable cashflows to invest in” said Olatidoye.

The webinar with the theme ‘Funding through Commercial Papers and Bonds’ was hosted to engage corporates and investors on the opportunities within issuing and investing in commercial papers and bonds.

Other speakers included Sumit Jain, Senior Executive Director at Valency International, a leading food ingredient supply chain company. He echoed the sentiment about the benefits of issuing commercial papers.

We believe that corporates can lower the interest paid on bank debts by up to 4 percentage points by issuing commercial papers. Loans also offer other tremendous benefits in the current macroeconomic environment” said Sumit Jain.

Nigeria’s capital market has recorded a flurry of corporate commercial papers and bond issues since a sharp decline in interest rates in the third quarter of 2020. “We think the market conditions have just cast the spotlight on a financing option that discerning companies should consider.

We look forward to working with our clients to navigate the process to issuing CPs and bonds and therefore unlocking the efficiency and convenience that these instruments offer” stated Olatidoye. 

As a leading investment banking institution, FBNQuest has advised on the issuance of several commercial papers transactions for organisations such as Valency Agro Nigeria LimitedMixta Real Estate plc, Dangote Cement plc, Nigerian Breweries plc (NB), Lafarge Africa plc, Flour Mills of Nigeria plc (FMN), Wema Bank plc, and UACN Property Development Company plc (UPDC) to mention a few. 

These transactions add to the organisations impressive portfolio of organisations it has supported, and once again highlights its capabilities in the successful execution of sizeable capital market and commercial debt transactions.

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NNPC Logo

Refineries Record Deficit as NNPC Lifts $407.15m…

Refineries Record N5.4bn Deficit, As NNPC Lifts $407.15m Crude

Amidst controversy over the state of the nation’s refineries the latest report of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has indicated that Nigeria’s three refineries guzzled a total of N5.86 billion in overhead expenses on zero output in the month December 2020 alone.

READ ALSO: Eight States To Benefit From FG’s Agro-Processing Zones Programme

This expenditure eventually resulted in operating deficit of N5.37 billion by the refineries, the report stated. The three refineries are those of Kaduna, Warri and Port Harcourt.

The Federal Government has awarded contract for rehabilitation of Port Harcourt refinery at a cost of USD1.5 billion, a figure considered by most industry experts as outrageously high while condemning the high cost of maintaining the offices in the refineries with zero output over the years.

According to the NNPC report “in December 2020, NNPC lifted 7,538,735 barrels of crude oil from the daily allocation for domestic utilization translating to an average volume of 243,185 barrels of oil per day.”

The report further stated that in order to meet domestic product supply requirement for the month of December 2020, the entire 7,538,735 barrels were processed under the Direct Sales-Direct Purchase, DSDP, scheme while no deliveries to the domestic refineries for processing, meaning no crude was processed by the country’s three refineries.

Meanwhile, the report said the total value of crude oil lifted on the account of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, in December 2020 was $407.15 million latest report by the Corporation has shown.

NNPC in its Monthly Financial and Operations Report for January, 2021 said of the 12.16 million barrels lifted on its account in December 2020, 7.54 million barrels and 0.50 million barrels were for domestic and export markets respectively.

The report explained that at an average oil price of $50.78/barrel and exchange rate of N379/$, the domestic crude oil lifted by NNPC “is valued at $382.8 million or a Naira equivalent of N145.1 billion for the month of December 2020.

The remaining crude oil lifted for export was valued at $24.3 million at an average price of $48.92/barrel. The report added that from December 2019 to December 2020, a total volume of 708 million barrels of crude oil and condensate was lifted by all parties.

SOURCE