IYC To Tinubu: Don’t Allow NNPCL Borrow $3bn From AFREXIM

The Ijaw Youth Council (IYC) has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu not to allow the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to borrow $3 billion emergency crude repayment loan from the African Export-Import Bank (AFREXIM).

Addressing journalists in Port Harcourt yesterday, IYC national general secretary, Comrade

Mao Nangi Obu, who said going by the terms of agreement, the NNPCL would repay the loan through crude oil, described the development as ‘stealing through the backdoor.’

Obu wondered why the national energy company would depend on the crude produce by international oil companies and indigenous oil companies, to pay for it’s loan from AFREXIM Bank.

He said: “We here to react to the stealing through the backdoor as organised by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited. We heard stories that they just borrowed 3 billion dollars and they called it forward sales, which means they are going to pay in crude.

“They borrowed this money from AFREXIM Bank and they said they are going to pay back in crude. The NNPC is dismembered into what they call SBUs or subsidiaries. NNPC has a component of it that produce oil, called the NPDC. But they that was before their incorporation as NNPCL.

“The company is now called NNPC E&P Limited. They can lie to us by telling us that they also have a component or a subsidiary of NNPC that produce oil called the NAPPIMS. NAPPIMS, which is based in Lagos can only produce not more than 50,000 barrels of oil per day.

“The NPDC as a whole do not have the capacity today, as we speak now, to produce more than 250,000 barrels per day. Nigeria yesterday, when I said yesterday before now, agreed with OPEC that they were going to produce about 2.5 million but due to activities they said, happens in the Niger Delta.

“You and I know that oil activities, or anything oil is happening in the Niger Delta. Now, they have brought down the 2.5 million target to 1.4 million of oil. So, Nigeria now produces 1.4million barrels of oil per day.

“If you do the mathematics, the NPDC cannot produce, let’s be generous, including that of the NAPPIMS, just some of it, maximum 400,000 barrels per day.

“Now, NNPC is going to  pay back that money, knowing that the 4 million barrels that Nigeria produces is not solely from the NNPCL. It includes those from Shell and other IOCs as well as local companies.

“So, you cannot go into business first by saying that you are going to use everybody’s production to pay to AFREXIM Bank. If you do the mathematics, currently, oil is sold at the international market at 70 dollars but you and I know that these guys are rogues, they are thieves; they are not going to put that oil price at 70 dollars.

“Certainly, they will put it at 40 dollars or 50 dollars. Even if it is 70 dollars, it will take about, 43 million barrels for Nigeria to pay back the loan of 3 billion dollars.”