France's oil giant Total and international trading firms Trafigura and Vitol were among 21 companies handed crude oil term lifting contracts for 2016 by state oil firm Nigerian National Petroleum Corp, NNPC said Thursday.
"NNPC issued yesterday (Wednesday) the 2016 crude oil term contracts to 21 companies for the lifting of total 991,661 b/d of oil," the NNPC spokesman said.
Other beneficiaries include India National Oil Company, Emirates National Oil Company, the trading arms of Shell and ExxonMobil, and indigenous trader Sahara Energy.
The spokesman said the term contracts were distributed in five categories -- international refineries, international oil traders, indigenous oil trading companies, affiliates of International Oil Companies, and downstream operators.
The current list compared with 46 companies handed contracts for the 2015 period, which expired in May.
But it was much bigger than a pruned down list of 16 that NNPC Chief Executive Emmanuel Kachikwu envisaged in August in a bid to instill transparency and probity in the award of contracts and the management of the country's oil resources.
NNPC said in August it would only consider companies for the lucrative contracts that showed proof of business integrity and were ready to sign an undertaking to comply strictly with Nigerian anti-corruption laws.
The 991,661 b/d of various Nigerian crude grades on offer this time around, which is about 47.2% of the country's current production of 2.1 million b/d, is also lower than the export of around 1.17 million b/d in previous contracts, reflecting the drop in the country's oil output.
