NNPC: Refineries produced nothing in October

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has continued on a losing streak losing N184.2bn in the past four months.

The state owned refineries produced zero percent for the month of October, the NNPC has disclosed.

According to the NNPC financial operation monthly report for October, N88.48bn – the highest in the past four months – was remitted to the federation account by the corporation.

Despite producing at zero percent capacity, the refineries generated a loss of N1.45bn in October, falling from N8.84bn in September.

“Total crude processed by the three refineries, in the month of October 2015 was zero. However, 92,332 MT of unfinished product was processed which translates to a combined yield efficiency of 78.93%,” the report read.

“The combined value of output by the three refineries (at import parity price) for the month of October 2015 amounted to N5.49billion while the associated Crude plus freight cost was zero, giving a loss of N1.45 billion after considering overhead of N6.94 billion.”

In August the NNPC blamed its losses on subsidy claims, while in September, it said its losses stemmed from both refinery losses and subsidy claims.

In October however, the NNPC said it losses came in from subsidy claims, pipeline vandalisation product loses and refinery operations.

“NNPC deficit of N240.99bn is mainly accounted for by claimable pipeline repairs/management cost of N86.69Bn and crude and product losses of N53.55bn due to vandalized pipelines.

“The N80.87Bn deficit attributable to PPMC was arrived at after adjusting for an estimated claimable subsidy of N276.81Bn from the petroleum products sales.”

The NNPC said the refineries would be shut down in December, for a whole year, if they fail to meet up with optimum performance by December.

Domestic gas supply rose by over 80mmscfd, but power generation dropped by more than 50 megawatts in October.

“A total of 778mmscfd was delivered to the gas fired power plants in the month of October 2015 to generate an average power of about 2,869 MW compared with a 2015 YTD average gas supply 690mmscfd and power generation of 2,938 MW.”

The NNPC, under the leadership of Ibe Kachikwu, is currently running a 20 fixes programme to turn around the corporation.

The total amount lost under former president, Goodluck Jonathan, could not be ascertained by the NNPC, as the corporation was relatively opaque at the time.