Nigeria’s three refineries, for the first time since February 2015, were able to make profit at the close of business in January this year, latest figures from the financial and operations report of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation have shown.
The report showed that the refineries recorded losses consecutively from February last year up till December; but in January 2016, they made an operating profit of N5.67bn.
The plants are the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company, Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company and Port Harcourt Refining Company.
Although the consolidated revenue of the three refineries indicated an operating profit of N5.67bn, an analysis of the report showed that of the three, only two actually made profits at the close of activities in January.
The two of them, according to the report, are the WRPC and PHRC, while the KRPC recorded a loss.
For specifics, the WRPC and PHRC recorded operating profits of N4.391bn and N3.397bn, respectively, while the KRPC had a loss of N2.118bn.
“The combined value of output by the three refineries (at import parity price) for the month of January 2016 amounted to N22.29bn, while the associated crude plus freight cost was N10.73bn, giving a positive margin of N5.67bn after considering overhead of N6.01bn,” the NNPC stated.
Further analysis of the report showed that the highest loss ever recorded by the three refineries during the period under review was in the month of September 2015, as the facilities had a consolidated revenue shortfall of N8.841bn.
The NNPC also stated that Premium Motor Spirit and Dual Purpose Kerosene production by the refineries in January 2016 amounted to 162.02 million litres, compared to 39.63 million litres in December 2015.
It added that in January 2016, about 1.1 billion litres of white products – petrol and kerosene – were supplied to the country through the Offshore Processing Agreements.
These, it said, comprised 1.02 billion litres and 30.89 million litres of petrol and kerosene, respectively.
Meanwhile, senior officials at the corporation told our correspondent on Sunday that the Federal Government might employ more hands to fill vacant positions to be created when the NNPC is finally split into 30 companies.
