Kaduna State Refinery loses N14.4bn in four months

The Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company, did not process any crude oil from June to September this year and made a loss of N14.43bn within the period.

The three government-owned refineries lost a total of N16.67bn in the third quarter of this year, the latest financial and operations report of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, obtained by our correspondent on Friday, showed.

The nation’s refineries are the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company, Port Harcourt Refining Company, and the KRPC.

The Kaduna refinery lost N3.46bn in June, N3.6bn in July, N3.59bn in August and N3.78bn in September, the NNPC data showed.

The Port Harcourt refinery, which was idle in August, made a loss of N1.05bn in the third quarter while the WRPC recorded a deficit of N4.65bn in the period as it was shut down in September.

The PHRC processed 115,441 metric tonnes of crude oil in September, translating to combined yield efficiency of 78.09 per cent compared to 178,788MT of crude processed in August, which translated to combined yield efficiency of 83.36 per cent.

The three refineries produced 137,984MT of finished petroleum products out of 115,441MT of crude processed at combined capacity utilisation of 6.14 per cent, compared to 9.50 per cent combined capacity utilisation achieved in August.

“The deprived operational performance is attributed to the KRPC and the WRPC downtime during the month under review. The ongoing revamping of the refineries will enhance capacity utilisation once completed,” the NNPC said.

It also showed that the production of petroleum products (petrol and kerosene only) by the refineries amounted to 87.47 million litres in September, compared to 78.44 million litres in August.

The corporation said it had been adopting a Merchant Plant Refineries Business Model since January this year.

According to the NNPC, the model takes cognisance of the products’ worth and crude costs.

The corporation said the combined value of output by the three refineries (at import parity price) for September amounted to N18.41bn while the associated crude plus freight costs and operational expenses were given as N13.31bn and N8.62bn, respectively.

“This resulted in an operating deficit of N3.52bn by the refineries. Also, during the period under review, the refineries’ combined capacity utilisation was 6.14 per cent with only the PHRC which operated at capacity utilisation of 13 per cent,” the corporation.

According to the report, the national oil firm recorded in September a trade deficit of N2.81bn, down from the previous month’s deficit of N5.74bn.

It said, “This represents 51.06 per cent or N2.93bn improvement compared to the last month’s performance. This improved performance is mainly due to revamping of Forcados export terminal which enhances the NPDC’s performance as well as slight improved performance of the downstream value chain, especially the PPMC despite high crude oil inventory and the shutdowns of the KRPC and the WRPC during the period as a result of several maintenance interventions.”