• Corp Cuts Losses by 16.19%
• Refining Capacity Up 29%
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), on Tuesday announced that its Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) and Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company (WRPC) posted surpluses of N5.519bn in the month of January.
A breakdown of the figure showed that while PHRC recorded N5.115; WRPC posted a N404m surplus, linked to the corporation’s new model, where each refinery purchases crude oil at export parity price, processes and sells the corresponding products on its own account.
According to a statement by Ndu Ughamadu, Group General Manger, Group Public Affairs Division, the corporation’s latest Monthly Financial and Operations Report for January showed that the combined installed capacity utilization of its refineries located in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna rose by about 29%, compared with their performance in December 2016.
The report said the combined capacity utilization of the refineries rose to 36.73% within the period, compared to 7.55% in December, 2016, which the report also attributed to the improvement in implementation of its 12 Business Focus Areas (BUFAS) strategy introduced by the Group Managing Director, Dr. Maikanti Baru.
Nigeria’s refineries, the report continued, benefitted from the introduction of a new Refineries Business Model under the 12 BUFAS strategy which has transformed them from “tolling plants to merchant plants” thereby placing them on the path of profitability.
“This is different from the previous Tolling Plant model where the refinery does not take title to the crude, but rather charges a tolling/processing fee to the owner of the crude which was PPMC on behalf of the Corporation”, the report added.
Apart from PHRC and WRPC, five other subsidiaries of the Corporation, namely: the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), the Nigerian Gas Pipelines and Transport Company (NGPTC), NNPC Retail, the National Engineering and Technical Company (NETCO), and the Integrated Data Services Ltd (IDSL), also posted surpluses.
The report put trade deficit in the period stood at N2.75bn, bringing total trading deficit at N14.26bn.
“This represents about 16.19% improvement, compared to N17.01bn in December, 2016, in spite of the Corporation’s challenging situations which limit its aspiration to profitability,” the report stated.
The performance would have significantly better, the document added, but for factors that served as impediments, such as the production shutdown of the Trans Niger Pipeline and Nembe Creek Trunkline due to leakages; the shutdown of Agbami Terminal for a mini Turn-Around-Maintenance; and the subsisting Force Majeure declared by SPDC as a result of the vandalized 48-inch Forcados export line after its restoration in October 17, 2016.
