According to
the report last Friday, the Port
Harcourt Refining Company Limited, Kaduna
Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited, and Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited, which received
the crude, could not account for the supplies for the period. As at Friday, the
price of crude oil was $47.96 per barrel. Going by this, the cost of the
258,810 barrels of crude oil supplied to the refineries in the two months will
therefore be $12.41m.
The Central
Bank of Nigeria naira exchange rate to the United States dollar was 197 on
Friday. Therefore, the naira equivalent for the supplied crude to the three
refineries during the period under review is N2.44bn. The NNPC stated in the report, that the refineries, which
received 204,720 barrels of crude in April, failed to churn out any refined product. It also said
that the only refinery, WRPC, which got 54,090 barrels of crude in May, did not
process anything either for the month.
Therefore,
the total volume of crude oil supplied to the three refineries in April and May
was given as 258,810 barrels, but nothing was recorded as processed petroleum
products by the firms during the period. For instance, the report stated that
in April, the three refineries received 204,720 barrels of crude oil and had
total opening stock of 1.164 million barrels of crude. In the same month, the
total crude available for processing was given as 1.369 million barrels but
nothing was processed by the national oil firms in April, the NNPC report
stated.
While
detailing the operations of the refineries and their various crude balances for
April, the NNPC said: “This month, 204,720 barrels of
crude oil and slop was received by the three refineries, KRPC, PHRC and WRPC. With
an opening stock of 1.164 million barrels, the total crude oil available for
processing was 1.369 million barrels out of which zero barrel was processed.
The respective average capacity utilisation during the month was 0.00%, 0.00%
and 0.00% for the KRPC, PHRC and WRPC, respectively.”
Although
only the WRPC received crude, 54,090 barrels in May, the Warri refinery and
Port Harcourt refinery had combined opening stock of 484,240 barrels of crude
for the month under review. The volume of crude that was available to them for
processing was 538,330 barrels, out of which nothing was processed.
In detailing
the operations of the refineries and their various crude balance for the month
of May 2015, the NNPC said in the report: “This month,
54,090 barrels of Seplat crude oil were received by the WRPC. The PHRC and WRPC
had an opening stock of 484,240 barrels, total crude oil available for
processing was 538,330 barrels out of which zero barrel was processed. The
respective average capacity utilisation during the month was 0.00%, 0.00% and
0.00% for the KRPC, PHRC and WRPC, respectively. The NNPC, however, stated that
in March, “zero barrels of slop was received by the three refineries.”
It noted: “With an opening stock of 1.164 million barrels, the total
crude oil available for processing (in March) was 1.164 million barrels out of
which zero barrel was processed. The respective average capacity utilisation
during the month was 0.00%, 0.00% and 0.00% for the KRPC, PHRC and WRPC,
respectively.”
The NNPC, on
many occasions in the past, had stated that the inability of the refineries to
process crude was due to the turnaround maintenance being carried out on them. The
new management of the NNPC, however, stated that the refineries were now
processing crude oil, although none of them was working at optimum capacity. On
July 28, the NNPC announced that the Port Harcourt and Warri refineries had
been successfully re-streamed after a nine-month rehabilitation carried out by
its in-house engineers and technicians.
The NNPC
said that both plants had commenced preliminary refining of petroleum products
after a successful test-run, adding that while the PHRC was ramping up its
operation to about 60 per cent of its 210,000 barrels per day capacity, the
WRPC production was projected to hit 80 per cent of its installed 125,000bpd
capacity.
The NNPC
said the Port Harcourt refinery was projected to boost the nation’s local
refining capacity with a product yield of five million litres of petrol per
day, while that of Warri would contribute 3.5 million litres of petrol.
While
responding to the development, the Chairman, Petroleum Downstream Group of the
Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Mr.
Emmanuel Osagie, told Tectono Business Review that the poor
management of the refineries had resulted in their inability to process crude
oil, adding that some of the crude oil supplied to the refineries might have
been used in the crude for product swap arrangement adopted by the NNPC, and
that it was a good thing to hear that the government recently cancelled the oil
swap model.
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