Nigeria will continue to rely on fuel importation to meet local demand, as efforts to revive its refineries to boost local supply have not yielded fruits. A report released by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) covering September put the combined production capacities of the nation’s four refineries at 1.96 per cent.
Besides, the oil corporation also suffered revenues loss of N8.8 billion. NNPC, in the report released at the weekend, said that the refineries in Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Warri only worked at a combined capacity utilisation of 1.96 per cent in the month under review.
The report stated that the combined value of output by the refineries amounted to N9.9 billion for crude processed in September. It added that the associated crude plus freight cost stood at N6.3 billion, representing a loss of N8.8 billion after an overhead cost of N12.4 billion.
The report also indicated that 75.78 million litres of fuel was produced compared to 200.2 million litres in August in respect of products from domestic refineries. The running of the refineries at a loss, coupled with their dwindling performance, could further embolden the calls for the privatisation of the refineries despite the stance of the Federal Government that the refineries will not be sold.
The total crude processed by the three refineries in September was 261,371.14 bbls (35,648 metric tonnes). According to the report, only Port Harcourt refinery produced 31,008 million metric tonnes of petroleum products, out of 35,648 million metric tonnes of crude processed at an average capacity utilisation of 5.77 per cent.
The NNPC, according to the report, generated N44.2 billion from the sale of these “white petroleum products” in August. The total revenue for white products sold from January to September 2015 stood at N461.1 billion
. It stated that proceeds from the sale of petrol contributed about 86 per cent of all the revenues collected from January to September with a value of N395.68 billion. The report said that the petroleum product supplied and distributed into the country from Off- Shore Processing Agreements stood at 763.90 million litres of white products against 701.29 million litres supplied in August.
Kerosene receipt in September, it added, was 196.30 million litres compared with zero litres imported in the previous month while 507.90 million litres of downstream petroleum products were distributed and sold by PPMC in September 2015 compared to 606.84 million litres the previous month. The report stated that the sale comprised 456.81 million litres of petrol, 31.41 million litres of kerosene and 19.68 million litres of diesel. It stated that the total sale of white products from January to September stood at 6.41 billion litres, with petrol recording 5.08 billion litres, representing 79 per cent of the sale.
The report also showed that 246 billion standard cubic feet (BCF) of natural gas was produced in September. It indicated that an average daily production of 8,187 million standard cubic feet per day was recorded during the period.
The report further showed that 2,164 BCF of gas was produced between January and September 2015, representing an average daily production of 7,925 mmscfd during the period. It stated that the production from Joint Ventures, Production Sharing Contracts and the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company contributed about 69.8 per cent, 22 per cent and 8.2 per cent respectively to the total national gas production. The report stated that an average of 773 mmscfd of domestic gas supply to the power sector was delivered to the gas-fired power plants in September 2015.
