By Adewale Sanyaolu
The founder of Stanbic IBTC and Anap Foundation, Mr. Atedo Peterside, has said the Port Harcourt refinery generated no revenue in 2019 but incurred processing and administrative costs of N47 billion during the same period.
This was even as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) recorded a 27. 54 per cent increase in its expenditure or N112.81 billion for the month of December 2020.
In a tweet on Sunday, Peterside accused NNPC of pushing the country into a financial mess.
According to him, it is preferable that the refinery is sold to qualified investors.
“In 2019, PH Refinery contributed zero revenue, but incurred costs of N47bn; almost N4bn a month!, ” the tweet read.
“Instead of ending this nightmare through a #BPE core investor sale, NNPC wants to enmesh Nigeria into a deeper financial mess by throwing $1.5bn (incl. debt) at a problem it created?”
On March 17, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved the sum of $1.5 billion for rehabilitation of the refinery.
Timipre Sylva, minister of state for petroleum, said the rehabilitation will be done in three phases of 18, 24 and 44 months.
The N11.81 billion expenditure figure is contained in the December 2020 edition of the NNPC Monthly Financial and Operations Report (MFOR).
A further analysis of the 27.54 per cent expenditure increase indicated that N409.66 was recorded in November as against N522.47 billion in December 2020.
The December 2020, expenditure as a proportion of revenue is 0.96 as against 0.97 in November 2020.
The corporation announced an increase of 80.12 per cent in trading surplus for the month of December 2020 which stands at ₦24.19 billion compared to the ₦13.43 billion surplus recorded in November 2020.
Trading surplus or trading deficit is derived after deduction of the expenditure profile from the revenue in the period under review.
The report indicated that the 80.12 per cent increase is due mainly to the significant rise in the profit of NNPC’s flagship Upstream entity, the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC) amid improved market fundamentals and strong global demand for crude oil.
Other contributory factors to the robust trading surplus recorded in the month under review include the improved performance by the Nigerian Gas Marketing Company (NGMC), the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), the National Engineering and Technical Company (NETCO) and Duke Oil Incorporated which recorded noticeable gains in their operations.
In the Downstream, 2.26billion litres of white products were sold and distributed by PPMC in the month of December 2020 compared to 1.72billion litres in the month of November 2020.
This comprised 2.254 billion litres of petrol, translating to 72.72million litres/day, 11.40 million litres of Automotive Gas Oil (diesel) and 0.48 million litres of kerosene.
Total sale of white products for the period of December 2019 to December 2020 stood at 18.456billion litres and petrol accounted for 18.325billion litres or 99.29 per cent.
In monetary terms, the volume translates to a value of ₦288.77 billion recorded on the sale of white products by PPMC in the month of December 2020 compared to ₦226.08 billion sales in November 2020.