Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation
The NNPC attributed the operational shortfall to the on-going rehabilitation of the oil refineries. Other factors responsible for the losses incurred, NNPC said, include spillages, explosions, and theft.
The refineries have a combined production capacity of 445,000 barrels per day (bpd). But from June 2019 to June this year, the three petrochemical companies could only manage 38,977 metric tonnes of crude production.
This was produced in July 2019 by the Kaduna refinery, which amassed an operating deficit of ?62 billion in 13 months, according to Premium Times review of the published details. With zero production, the Warri and Port Harcourt refineries respectively gulped ?42.1 billion and ?43.8 billion from the country’s coffers.
All through, only the Kaduna refinery had its capacity utilised for once. It had an 8.09 percent capacity utilisation in July 2019. During the remaining months, itself and the other refineries had zero capacity utilisation.
Although the NNPC said this was due to the ongoing repair of the refineries, its audit report published in June — the first in 43 years — showed that the refineries posted a cumulative loss of ?1.64 trillion from 2014 to 2018.
