Offi cial figures released by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), has revealed that none of its four major refineries performed up to 50 per cent capacity in 2017. The federal government’s inability to conduct a proper Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) for several decades resulted in their underperformance.
The NNPC has four major refineries, two in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, which combine to form the Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC) with a combined installed capacity of 210,000 barrels per stream day (bpsd); the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited (KRPC) with an installed capacity of 110,000 bpsd; and the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited (WRPC) with an installed capacity of 125,000 bpsd. All the refineries have a combined installed capacity of 445,000 barrels per day. Accoridng to the report, the Warri refinery in 2017, functioned highest in January, utilising 42.6 per cent of its capacity. The Port-Harcourt refinery, for the year, functioned at its peak in December, utilising 41.7 per cent. The Kaduna refinery had the worst performance in terms of capacity utilisation in 2017.
It functioned most in February utilising just 34.4 per cent of its capacity. The refineries were said to have performed best in January 2017 at 36.73 per cent of 445,000 bpd while September 2017 recorded the worst consolidated capacity utilisation in 2017 at 5.81 per cent. On the steps taken to increase the utilisation of the refineries, the report showed that the NNPC is inching closer to choosing financial advisors for the refineries as there are plans to rehabilitate and get the refineries utilising up to 90 per cent of their capacities by 2019. The Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Maikanti Baru, in the April 2018 edition of the NNPC NEWS publication, said the nameplate capacity of the refineries (445,000bpd) is likely to increase after the refineries are rehabilitated. “After the refurbishment, we could get some ‘upsize’ from the debottlenecking side. Whatever upsize that comes will help us increase the volume of petrol that would be coming into the market.”
