Excess crude account reached N450billion in November

The balance in the Excess Crude Oil Account surged to about N450billion at the end of last month, the accountant general of the federation, Ibrahim Dankwambo, said at the end of the monthly Federation Accounts Allocation Committee meeting in Abuja at the weekend. He said the balance of revenue in the dollar-denominated component of the ECA was about $1.9billion, while about N50billion was transferred into the domestic ECA. This excludes the $1billion already deposited by the federal government as seed money for the take-off of the newly created Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF).

Mr. Dankwambo attributed the surge in the revenue in the ECA to increased oil production capacity under the various Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) in recent times as a result of the declining tension in the Niger Delta as a consequence of the impact of the federal government amnesty initiative in the region, improved oil prices at the international oil market above the $60 per barrel benchmark in the 2010 budget as well as a rise in the modified carry agreement receipts by the oil companies.

“The production capacity of the multinational oil operators improved tremendously in recent times as a result of the improved operational environment as a direct consequence of the Federal Government Amnesty Programme for Niger Delta militant groups as well as increase in crude oil prices at the international market. Revenue, generally, was good, that was why there was a transfer to excess crude account (dollar), which has a balance of $1.9billion, (domestic) N50billion) and Sovereign Wealth Fund of $1billion, bringing it to close to $3billion in revenue savings. Our hope is that this level will be sustained,” he said.

The AGF said gross revenue available for distribution among the three tiers of government for the month of November was N557.839billion, made up of N407.554billion as statutory revenue, including Value Added tax (VAT). The total figure is higher than N451.074billion from the previous month by N106.766billion. The distributable statutory revenue for the month was N364.639billion, an increase of N564million, or 0.15 percent compared to the October figure. There was no augmentation revenue for the month, neither was there an exchange gain,

considering that the prevailing exchange rate of N147 per dollar was lower than the N150 per dollar set as the benchmark. A total of about N143.043billion was transferred to the ECA, as well as for Petroleum Profit Tax (PPT) and Royalty.