Nigeria’s public refineries only worked at a combined capacity utilisation of 1.96 per cent in September, an official document has stated.
This is contrary to the claims, in the early days of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, by Nigerian oil officials that the refineries were close to working at maximum capacity.
The current working situation of the refineries was stated in the September report of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
The report stated that the combined value of output by the public refineries in Nigeria amounted to N9.9 billion for crude processed in September. It said that the associated crude plus freight cost stood at N6.3 billion, representing a loss of N8.8 billion after an overhead cost of N12.4 billion.
The report also indicated that 75.78 million litres was produced compared to 200.2 million litres in August in respect of products from domestic refineries.
The running of the refineries at a loss, coupled with their dwindling performance could further embolden the calls for the privatisation of the refineries despite the stance of the federal government that the refineries will not be sold.
The total crude processed by the three refineries in September was 261,371.14 bbls (35,648 MT) translating to a combined capacity utilisation of 1.96 per cent.
According to the report, only Port Harcourt refinery produced 31,008 million MT of petroleum products, out of 35,648 million MT of crude processed at an average capacity utilisation of 5.77 per cent.
The NNPC also said it recorded N38.67 billion from the sale of downstream petroleum products in September.
According to the report, the amount was in respect of revenue from “white products” sold by the Pipelines and Product Marketing Company.
The white products include Automotive Gas Oil, Household Kerosene, and Premium Motor Spirit (PMS).
The report also indicated that NNPC generated N44.2 billion from the sale of white petroleum products in August.
According to the report, the total revenue for white products sold from January to September 2015 stood at N461.1 billion.
It stated that the PMS contributed about 86 per cent of all the revenues collected from January to September with a value of N395.68 billion.
It said the petroleum product supplied and distributed into the country from Off-Shore Processing Agreements, stood at 763.90 million litres of white products against 701.29 million litres supplied in August.
The report said Dual Purpose Kerosene, receipt in September was 196.30 million litres compared with zero litres imported in the previous month.
It stated that 507.90 million litres of downstream petroleum products were distributed and sold by PPMC in September 2015 compared to 606.84 million litres sold in the previous month.
The report stated that the sale comprised 456.81 million litres of PMS, 31.41 million litres of Kerosene and 19.68 million litres of diesel.
It stated that the total sale of white products for the period, January to September stood at 6.41billion litres, with PMS recording 5.08 billion litres or 79 per cent of the sale.
On gas production, it sated that 246 billion standard cubic feet (BCF) of natural gas was produced in September.
The report indicated that an average daily production of 8,187 million standard cubic feet per day was recorded during the period.
It showed that 2,164 BCF of gas was produced between January and September 2015 representing an average daily production of 7,925 mmscfd during the period.
It stated that the production from Joint Ventures, Production Sharing Contracts and the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company contributed about 69.8, 22.0 and 8.2 per cents respectively to the total national gas production.
The report stated that an average of 773 mmscfd of domestic gas supply to the power sector was delivered to the gas fired power plants in September 2015.
It stated that the supply was designed to generate an average power of about 3,141 Mega Watts of electricity compared to the 2015 YTD average gas supply of 656 mmscfd and power generation of 2,843 MWs.
(NAN)
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