Damilola Shittu – Abuja
Nigeria’s refineries under the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) made a cumulative loss of N123.25bn from January to October 2019, latest figures released on Wednesday showed.
An analysis of data in the October 2019 oil and gas report of the NNPC showed that all three entities recorded losses during the period under review.
Refineries under NNPC management include the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company, Port Harcourt Refining Company and Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company.
Findings showed that while KRPC posted a loss of N49.3bn in the 10-month period, PHRC and WRPC lost N36.7bn and N37.24bn respectively during the same period.
It was further observed that the actual revenue made by the three facilities during the period was N68.82bn while their expenses were put at N192.1bn.
Of the three refineries, WRPC made the highest revenue of N59.1bn during the period, even as it posted the highest loss of N96.32bn.
KRPC and PHRC made N6.23bn and N3.46bn as revenues in the 10-month period but lost N55.59bn and N40.16bn respectively.
For October 2019 alone, the facilities posted a cumulative loss of N11.72bn.
Their individual losses in October were N5.24bn, N3.38bn and N3.1bn for KRPC, PHRC and WRPC respectively.
There had been various concerns over the abysmal performance of Nigeria’s refineries.
The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff association, for instance, told our correspondent recently that it was high time the Federal Government channelled the funds spent on petrol subsidy to making the refineries work.
“PENGASSAN has always called on the government of the day to ensure that our refineries are functioning optimally. The humongous amount spent on petrol subsidy should be invested in our refineries,” PENGASSAN spokesperson, Fortune Obi, said.
He said the government could not be subsidising petrol forever, asding that the main solution was to remove subsidy and make the refineries functional.
