Nigeria’s moribund refineries gulped N218.2bn in 2019, posted N149.2bn loss

Spending on Nigeria’s comatose state-owned oil refineries came to N218.18 billion in 2019, figures from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Wednesday have shown.

Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHFC), Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) as well as Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company (WRPC), which have a combined installed capacity of 445,000 barrels per day, posted an aggregate loss of N149.23 billion in the review period.

On the revenue side, the refineries earned N68.96 billion just as their combined expenditure added up to N218.18 billion.

They had been set a joint revenue target of N309.14 billion for the year while their expenditure was forecast to be N377.35 billion.

The NNPC had projected a N68.21 billion loss for the plants in 2019 before the eventual loss ballooned to N149.23 billion, a 118.8% increase as a matter of fact.

Out of the cumulative loss, KRPC accounted for N58.96 billion, WRPC N45.49 billion and PHRC N44.7 billion.

The refineries incurred consecutive losses two months in a row in November (N12.52 billion) and December (N13.46 billion) 2019.

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In the two months, their joint expenditure totalled N26.11 billion compared to N138 million earned as revenue.

The projections for the months in question were N25.76 billion revenue, N31.45 billion expenditure and N5.68 billion loss.

“In November 2019, the three refineries processed no crude and produced -5031 metric tonnes of finished products; comprising -3052MT and -1979MT utilised by the WRPC and the PHRC respectively,” said the NNPC.

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