Damilola Shittu – Abuja
Foreign refineries processed crude oil valued at N2.39tn between March 2020 and March 2021 to ensure domestic supply of refined petroleum products in Nigeria as the country’s plants remained in a state of disrepair.
Figures obtained on Friday from a report by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation on the breakdown of the utilisation of crude oil for domestic product supply showed that the commodity was processed during a 13-month period.
The corporation, in its latest April 2021 report, said the volume of crude processed by the foreign facilities between March 2020 and March 2021 was 145,86 million barrels.
It explained that the oil was processed under the Direct-Sales Direct-Purchase scheme, adding that no delivery of crude was made to any of the refineries under the NNPC’s management.
NNPC manages the country’s refineries located in Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna. Rehabilitation has commenced in Port Harcourt, while funding has been approved by the Federal Government for the revamp of Warri and Kaduna refineries.
An analysis of the report further showed that from March 2020 to March 2021, no drop of crude oil was delivered to any of the local refineries for processing.
The corporation, however, said it had been lifting crude oil on a monthly basis and processing the commodity through the DSDP scheme to meet the demand for petroleum products across the country.
In March 2021, for instance, the oil firm said, “NNPC lifted 7,553,150 barrels of crude oil from the daily allocation for domestic utilisation translating to an average volume of 243,650 barrels of oil per day in terms of performance.
“In order to meet domestic product supply requirement for the month of March 2021, the entire 7,553,150 barrels were processed under the Direct-Sales-Direct Purchase scheme while (there was) no deliveries to the domestic refineries for processing.”
In explaining the DSDP, the oil firm said in compliance with the Public Procurement Act 2007 and NNPC’s Policy and Procedures, it had to engage qualified and credible companies in a Direct Sale of crude oil and Direct Purchase of petroleum product to ensure sustained product supply across the country.
The corporation had over the years adopted the scheme to ensure petrol imports into Nigeria, being the sole importer of the commodity, while other marketers had avoided PMS imports due to inaccessibility of the United States dollar.
NNPC recently stated that it was working to get Nigeria’s refineries functional and start local refining of products from the facilities.
The Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Kennie Obateru, had told our correspondent that the $1.5bn rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refining Company would make part of the facility to start delivering refined products by September next year.
NNPC officially signed the contract with Tecnimont SPA for the $1.5bn rehabilitation programme of PHRC on April 6, 2021, and parties in the agreement announced the commencement of the project.
He said, “The work is progressing. We said it will be completed within 18 to 44 months when counting from April this year. By 18 months some part of the refinery will be producing. The total rehabilitation job will be completed in 44 months.
“Why we said between 18 and 44 months is the fact that it will not be at the end of 44 months before the refinery starts working, but that in 18 months some sections of the refinery will start producing.”
