Refineries Performed At 12.26% Average Capacity In 3yrs, Report Finds

A report reviewing the operations of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) between 2015 and 2017 has found that for the last three years Nigeria’s refineries recorded an average capacity utilization of 12.26percent.

e360 reports that globally average capacity utilization of refineries is usually about 80percent, making Nigeria’s refineries the worst performed.

A breakdown of the report shows that Kaduna refinery had the lowest capacity utilization of 9percent while Warri and Port Harcourt recorded 9.73percent and 15.4percent respectively in the last three years.

On lifting of crude oil, the NEITI Occasional Paper series which reviewed the last years of NNPC operations and financial reports, disclosed that international oil companies (IOCs) lifted more crude oil than the government.

“While total lifting of crude oil and condensates was 2.135 billion barrels, the IOCs and Independents lifted a total of 1.367 billion barrels, while government’s lifting by NNPC was 721.16 million barrels,” the report said.

“This means that the operators lifted 64.01percent of total crude lifting’s, while government through NNPC lifted 33.76percent. When expressed in monetary terms, total government lifting of oil amounted to $35.893 billion while the figure for IOCs and Independents was $68.591 billion,” it added.

The Report further disclosed that refineries received 15.15percent of total domestic crude lifting out of which 41.32percent was utilized under the Direct Sale Direct Purchase (DSDP) programme of NNPC.

It also disclosed that the Corporation lost the sum of N547billion in its operation between 2015 and 2017. “Out of this amount, the NNPC Corporate Headquarters recorded the highest revenue loss to the tune of N336.268billion,” it said.

On the contrary, the Report revealed that the Nigeria Gas company made a huge profit of N141.324billion.

Meanwhile, NEITI while applauding the monthly voluntary disclosures by the NNPC, which provided data for review, noted that NEITI through its auditors under the EITI framework has not independently verified the information and data from the NNPC reports.

“NEITI has not, except for the year 2015, independently validated the data from NNPC. This will be done in ongoing and future reconciliation reports. What has been done here is a preliminary analysis of the data that NNPC has made available for the three-year period.”

NEITI added that “The figures (financial) examined here do not represent the sum total of all revenues from the sector, as other payment streams like royalties and taxes from JVs, signature bonuses, transportation rental fees, NESS fees, penalties and others are not covered by the NNPC financial and operational reports.”

The NEITI Occasional Paper series which reviewed the last three years of NNPC operations and financial reports is the third in the series.