Nigeria’s refineries in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna witnessed a drop in their consolidated capacity utilisation in May 2017, according to figures from the industry’s latest monthly oil and gas report.
This is coming as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation sustained its monthly financial losses as it recorded another loss of N3.55bn in May 2017, pushing up the year-to-date loss of the oil firm to N42.82bn.
An analysis of the corporation’s report showed that the consolidated capacity utilisation of the three refineries dropped from 24.59 per cent in April 2017, to 23.09 per cent in the month under review.
Nigeria’s refineries are managed by the NNPC and they include the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company, Port Harcourt Refining Company and Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company.
On the individual performance of the refineries, it was observed that the WRPC did not process any crude in May this year, in contrast to the 50,753 metric tonnes of crude it processed in the preceding month.
Its capacity utilisation in May 2017 was therefore zero per cent as against the 9.92 per cent recorded in April.
Similarly, the capacity utilisation of the KRPC dropped to 27.59 per cent in May 2017, down from 31.3 per cent that was recorded in April this year. The Kaduna refinery also processed less volume of crude in May as against what it refined in the preceding month.
It processed 140,864 MT of crude in April but this dropped to 129,974 MT in May.
Among the three facilities, only the PHRC recorded an improvement in its capacity utilisation, as well as in the volume of crude that was processed in the month under review.
The PHRC’s capacity utilisation increased from 29.81 per cent in April to 34.29 per cent in May, while it processed 304,445MT crude in May, higher than the 256,121MT that was refined in April.
On the group monthly financial performance of the NNPC, further analysis showed that the oil firm was actually able to reduce its losses from the N5.27bn recorded April, down to N3.55bn in May.
The N3.55bn loss in May, however, showed that the oil firm had continued to record losses since the beginning of this year.
But the NNPC stated that the improvement in May was “mainly attributed to enhanced crude oil evacuation and oil lifting in May 2017 at the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company following reopening of Forcados Oil Terminal on 31st March, 2017.
“The terminal had been shut down since 21st February, 2016 following force majeure declared by the SPDC as a result of the vandalised Forcados export line.”
It also stated that in the downstream sector, it had set a 2019 target to exit importation of the Premium Motor Spirit, popularly known as petrol.
It said, “Currently, all the nation’s three refineries are producing petroleum products, loading out at least five to six million litres of the PMS daily and about the same quantity of diesel daily.
“The corporation is also encouraging the building of new refineries that will co-locate with existing ones. The NNPC maintains that rehabilitation of the existing refineries will get the refineries fully back to their nameplate capacities.”
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