Exclusive: Are NNPCL’s London Trading Losses Real?

Doubt, suspicion characterise NNPCL year to year trade losses in its 440,000 barrel London trading claims

NNPC Trading Services (UK) Limited, formerly Duke Oil Services (UK) Limited, reported a loss of £334,702 for 2025, more than twice the £135,845 loss recorded in 2024. Its revenue rose from £351,541 to £585,459, but its cost of sales climbed much faster – from £251,621 to £549,440. The result was a collapse in gross profit from £99,920 to only £36,019.

NNPC Ltd says its trading business handled more than 440,000 barrels of Nigerian crude daily by the end of 2024, alongside millions of litres of petroleum products and large LNG, LPG and natural-gas-liquid volumes. NNPC’s corporate profile also says its trading arm handles more than 15 million barrels of crude monthly and operates across crude trading, petroleum-products trading, vessel chartering, blending, trade finance, bulk purchase agreements and strategic storage.

Behind that international trading architecture sits a London-registered company whose audited accounts tell a much smaller and more complicated story.

The company behind the UK gateway says it provides administrative and market-intelligence services, while NNPC reports record production and global trading volumes

This report does not tend to cast aspersions, it however tends to establish a question that deserves answers; a pattern that requires deeper scrutiny: how does the public-facing NNPC trading group report massive volumes and expanding production while the UK company at the centre of its international corporate footprint generates a small service income, posts a widening loss and depends on its Nigerian parent for financial support?

The first answer is that the two sets of figures measure different things. NNPCL’s headline numbers describe the wider group’s production and trading activities. The UK subsidiary’s 2025 accounts describe a support company whose stated principal activities are providing administrative services to NNPCL entities and carrying out market intelligence and related services. It is not presented in its UK accounts as the entity booking the full value of the group’s crude sales.

That distinction is important. It prevents a false comparison between NNPC’s barrels and the London company’s revenue. It also makes the London company’s role more important, not less. A service company inside an international oil-trading structure can be the place where contracts, market intelligence, documentation, banking relationships, ship-charter support, office costs and intercompany charges are organised. To understand how value moves through the wider group, Nigerians need to know what the UK company actually does, who authorises it and how its charges are calculated.

Production is not the same as trading

NNPC’s September 2026 results statement reported that crude oil and condensate production averaged 1.77 million barrels per day in 2025, with total oil and condensate production of 565.8 million barrels. It said NNPC Limited’s equity share increased to 223.7 million barrels.

In a separate August 2026 statement, NNPC said average crude production stood at 1.60 million barrels per day in April 2025, rising to 1.67 million barrels per day inclusive of condensate by April 2026.

The NNPC Trading profile gives a different metric: trading volumes. It says the company recorded daily trade volumes of over 440,000 barrels of Nigerian crude by the end of 2024. Annualised, that rate would represent roughly 160.6 million barrels if maintained for a full year. NNPCL also describes the broader trading business as handling more than 15 million barrels monthly, equivalent to more than 180 million barrels annually if sustained.

None of those numbers should be called “production” without qualification. Production is oil extracted from fields. Trading volume is oil bought, sold, marketed, lifted or otherwise handled through commercial arrangements. Equity share is the portion attributable to NNPC under ownership or production agreements. The difference between those categories is where public reporting can become misleading if the labels are blurred.

The UK subsidiary’s 2025 revenue of £585,459 should therefore not be read as the sales value of 440,000 barrels a day. The filed accounts say the revenue came from services and rent receivable. But that fact creates a transparency obligation: NNPC should publish a clear group map showing which entity owns the crude, which entity markets it, which entity invoices the buyer, which entity receives the cash and which entity records the trading margin.

The names behind the structure

The filed 2025 accounts list Bashir Bayo Ojulari, Nicolas Guy Foucart, Maryamu Idris, Salihu Nuhu Jamari, Ogbonne Ogeri Nnachi-Ibiam, Mumuni Dagazau, Oluwaseyi Omotowa, Adedapo Adeolu Segun and Hubertus Sigfridus Stokman as directors who served during the year. The accounts also name Uchechukwu Ifeatu Onuogu as company secretary.

NNPC’s corporate leadership page names Bayo Bashir Ojulari as Group CEO and lists Adedapo A. Segun as Chief Financial Officer and Executive Director.

The overlapping names matter because they show that the UK company is not an isolated private business. It is woven into the governance and management structure of NNPC’s wider trading system. That makes board minutes, intercompany contracts and management delegations central documents for any serious investigation.

A loss-making gateway requiring parent support

The 2025 accounts say NNPC Limited confirmed its intention to support the UK company financially for the foreseeable future and for at least twelve months from approval of the accounts. The directors therefore prepared the accounts on a going-concern basis.

The same accounts show net assets of £837,177, cash of £391,800 and total liabilities of £2.198 million. The company’s gross profit was only £36,019 before general and administrative expenses of £282,298 and finance costs of £131,523.

This is a corporate warning, not a criminal finding. The company may be deliberately structured as a support vehicle whose value lies in enabling larger trading operations. But if that is the model, NNPC should explain why the company’s costs are rising so sharply, which services it provides in London and Panama, and how the parent determines that those services are worth the amounts charged.

The public also needs to know whether the London company’s losses are temporary, strategic or structural. A state-owned group can choose to subsidise a subsidiary for legitimate commercial reasons. It must still demonstrate that the subsidy produces measurable value and does not become a channel through which costs, commissions or obligations are moved away from public scrutiny.

The questions that remain

The evidence currently supports the following questions, not a final accusation:

• What portion of the 440,000-barrel daily trading volume passes through contracts administered by the UK subsidiary?
• Does the London company receive any commissions, trading margins or success fees outside the service revenue disclosed in its accounts?
• Why did cost of sales rise by 118.4% while revenue rose by 66.5%?
• What explains the increase in finance costs to £131,523?
• Which directors approved the contracts with NNPC Trading SA, NNPC Trading Limited and NNPC Limited?
• Are the market-intelligence reports, shipping documents, invoices and rent agreements available for audit?
• Does the company’s UK office employ staff capable of performing the services it invoices, or does it mainly recharge costs incurred elsewhere?