The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says it recorded a trading surplus of N12.13 billion in December 2018.

This was disclosed in its monthly Financial and Operations Report, as indicated in a statement signed by the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division (NNPC), Ndu Ughamadu, on Sunday.

According to the report, the profit was due to the positive swing to higher revenue numbers posted by the corporation’s upstream subsidiary, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company.

It also cited the NPDC’s continuous revenue drive arising from recent average weekly production of 332,000 barrels of oil per day as the main driver of the positive outlook.

The NPDC targets 500,000bpd production in 2020.

The oil firm also noted that the profit was despite an increase in the number of pipeline breaches in the same month.

It said it had observed that there appeared to be no let-up in the activities of vandals who in December 2018 pushed pipeline breaches across the country up by 34%.

Within the period, 257 pipeline points were said to have been vandalised, out of which one pipeline point failed to be welded and six pipeline points were ruptured

•Excerpted from a Channels TV report