The combined installed capacity utilisation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s refineries located in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna increased by about 29 percentage points in January 2017 compared with their performance in December 2016.
In its latest monthly financial and operations report for January released in Abuja on Monday, the NNPC said the capacity utilisation of the refineries rose to 36.73 per cent in January, as against 7.55 per cent the previous month.
The Port Harcourt Refining Company and Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company posted surpluses of N5.12bn and N404m, respectively during the period.
The report noted that under the new model, each refinery was purchasing crude oil at export parity price, processing and selling the corresponding products on its own account.
“This is different from the previous tolling plant model where the refinery does not take title to the crude, but rather charges a tolling/processing fee to the owner of the crude, which was the PPMC on behalf of the corporation,” the report stated.
The report further indicated that the corporation recorded N2.75bn reduction in its trading deficit in the period under review, putting the total trading deficit at N14.26bn.
“This represents about 16.19 per cent improvement compared to the N17.01bn recorded in December 2016 in spite of the corporation’s challenging situations, which limit its aspiration to profitability,” it added.
It listed some of the factors that impeded the corporation’s performance to include the production shutdown of the Trans Niger Pipeline and Nembe Creek Trunkline due to leakages; the shutdown of the Agbami Terminal for a mini turnaround maintenance; and the subsisting force majeure declared by Shell Petroleum Development Company as a result of the vandalised 48-inch Forcados export line after its restoration on October 17, 2016.
