ABUJA: NNPC loses N241bn in 10 months

 Source: THE PUNCH

A total of N240.98bn was lost by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation between January and October this year, latest figures from the firm’s oil and gas report for October 2015 have shown.

The NNPC made a total revenue of N1.71tn and group expenses of N1.95tn during the period under review.

The report noted that the firm’s loss for the month of October alone was N12.22bn, down from N46.49bn recorded in September 2015.

Similarly, in the month of October, the country’s refineries lost a combined sum of N7.06bn as against N11.38bn lost in the preceding month of September.

The refineries also recorded zero capacity utilisation in the month of October.

The refineries include Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company, Port Harcourt Refining Company and Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company.

In fact, the capacity utilisations of two refineries, WRPC and KPRC in September 2015, according to the report, were zero per cent, as both refineries processed no crude oil in the month of September.

But in October, all of them had zero capacity utilisation.

The Group Managing Director, NNPC, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, had stated in September that non-performing refineries would be shut down at the expiration of the 90 days performance deadline given them by the oil firm.

The GMD had stated that he had a mandate to get the refineries running by December.

Kachikwu had said, “What I have clearly as a mandate will be that at the end of December when the 90 days is up, we will sit down and say which one of the refineries has shown the capacity to consistently perform at levels that make optimum sense. And those ones we will let to continue. We will look at management issues and tidy them up, procurement issues and tidy them up as well. But those that are not, we will have to shut (them) down and do complete maintenance.”

“I’ve given a 90-day programme which is working and I’m glad that over the last few weeks, Port Harcourt for example, has come out of the albatross and is producing right now at about 67 per cent capacity. Our target is to grow Port Harcourt to about 70, 75 per cent capacity by the end of the year. Warri is beginning to signal that there is a likelihood that they will come on stream.

“If any refinery produces below 60 per cent, then it is not production. Because the performing capacities of refineries worldwide are in the 90 per cent and above categories and that is when you begin to make yields. That is when it can be said to be a profitable refinery.”

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