Nigeria gross govt revenues rise for 2nd month in June, offshore debt rises

Nigeria's gross government revenues rose for the second consecutive month in June to 485.95 billion naira ($2.44 billion), up 33 percent from May, the finance ministry said.
The total for distribution to the three tiers of government was 518.542 billion naira including a 6.33 billion refund by the state oil company, value-added tax of 64.99 billion naira and an exchange rate gain of 6.69 billion naira.
In May, Nigeria received 324.06 billion naira in revenues and distributed 409.35 billion naira between the federal, state and local governments.
The balance of the Excess Crude Account stood at $2.207 billion, up from $2.078 billion on June 23.
International oil prices rose at the end of April and benchmark Brent futures were sustained in the $60s a barrel before falling again into the $50s a barrel at the start of July.
Africa's biggest oil producer depends on oil sales for about 70 percent of its government revenues.
Anastasia Daniel-Nwoabia, permanent secretary of the finance ministry, said revenues were negatively impacted by a shutdown of pipelines feeding the Nembe and Forcados crude export terminals.
Shell declared force majeure on exports of the Forcados crude stream in early May due to leaks on the main pipeline. The force majeure was lifted in mid-July.
Meanwhile Nigeria's foreign debt stood at $10.32 billion in the first six months of the year, up 10 percent from $9.38 billion in the same period of last year, the Debt Management Office (DMO) said on Monday.
Offshore debt in naira terms showed a 39.1 percent rise to 2.03 trillion naira, due to a weaker currency which lost 20.9 percent during the period, the government agency said.
The DMO said domestic debt stood at 8.39 trillion naira ($43 billion) by end-June against 7.42 trillion naira a year earlier.