The Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company did not refine any crude oil from February to August this year, losing a total of N18.67bn, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has said. The refinery lost N3.81bn in February, N2.63bn in March, N4.22bn in May, N2.98bn in June, N2.35bn in July, and N2.68bn in August, but made a profit of N2.96bn in April, the corporation said in its latest monthly report. Nigeria has four refineries, two in Port Harcourt and one each in Kaduna and Warri, with an installed capacity of 445,000 barrels per day, but they have continued to operate far below the installed capacity for many years. The refineries lost a total of N68.12bn in the first half of this year, making a profit of N928.81m in April, for the first time in 10 months, according to the data from the NNPC. Total crude processed by the refineries in August was 56,804 metric tonnes as against the 90,872MT processed in the preceding month, translating to a combined yield efficiency of 80.74 per cent as against the 73.82 per cent in July. The NNPC said only Warri and Port Harcourt refineries produced 53,881MT of finished petroleum products and 8,017MT of intermediate products out of the 56,804MT of crude processed at a combined capacity utilisation of 3.02 per cent, compared to 4.83 per cent combined capacity utilisation achieved in July.
Nov 17, 2018
