The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has entered into a landmark deal for the direct export of crude oil to Europe, marking its first ex-ship transaction that allows direct European shipment.
The shipment is set to be loaded onto NNPC Shipping’s Greek-chartered vessel on either April 9 or 10. The agreement was earlier reached in March with an international oil trader and accounts for insurance alongside shipping to be handled by NNPC, which shifts Nigeria’s conventional free-on-board approach.
NNPC Shipping’s managing director, Panos Gliatis, had equally shared optimism, describing the contract as a deal of great consequence towards achieving the company’s broad aspirations to shift the company into an “agile and dependable energy supplier, stating that the ship can dock at many ports across Europe.
With NNPC’s first shipments of liquefied natural gas to Japan and China this year and further plans of integrating NNPC LNG and NNPC shipping, these companies hope to accelerate synergy in the future for NNPC, as national oil has been actively seeking alliances since starting LPG trade in 2021.
In the same spirit, NNPC is also creating a joint venture with Stena Bulk from Sweden and Nigerian Caverton Marine to strengthen the LPG market MANAG across West Africa with a new fleet of designed LPG and gas carriers.
Drawing on an older charter deal between Stena and NNPC Shipping, the new venture seeks to merge new and current ships to take advantage of regional opportunities.
Stena has been granted time charter control of two Suezmax tankers to evacuate crude for the recently commissioned 650,000 barrel-per-day Dangote refinery, further indicative of his consolidating focus in energy logistics.
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