The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has said it spent a whopping sum of N101.69 billion to service three non-operational refineries in 2020Ironically, the three refineries did not process crude in the year under review.The the refineries were the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company, Port Harcourt Refining Company (PHRC), and Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC).The refineries, according to the report, have a combined production capacity of 445,000 barrels of oil per day (BPD), adding that all the refineries processed no crude in year 2020.
The KRPC recorded the highest overhead expenses of N34.16 billion, with PHRC following with N33.97 billion while WRPC recorded N33.55 billion.Furthermore, in January 2020, the refineries had incurred N9.6 billion operating deficit, while in February, N9.36 billion loss was incurred with highest deficit in March of same year, which was put at about N10.30 billion by the three refineries and N9.6 billion in April as well.However, in May and June, the refineries recorded losses of N9.54 billion and N10.23 billion and N9.05 billion loss was recorded by the three refineries in June
.The report revealed that the operating deficits decreased in the months of August, September, and October, despite the refineries posting N7.08 billion, N7.04 billion, and N5.48 billion losses accordingly.In addition, about N5.9 billion loss was recorded in November before increasing to N8.2 billion in December.It would be recalled that the Federal government recently said it would spend $1.5 billion on the turn- around maintenance of these non -functional refineries.
