The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has said it spent N100bn on refineries’ rehabilitation in 2021 and that funds were pumped into revamping the facilities on a monthly basis last year.
It disclosed this in a report on the funding performance of the oil firm from January to December 2021, which was seen in Abuja.
Although no refinery was mentioned in the report, Nigeria’s refineries had been under the management of NNPC, as the rehabilitation of one of the facilities, Port Harcourt Refining Company, had been ongoing.
The other refineries under the NNPC’s management include the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company, as well as the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company.
In the NNPC’s latest funding performance report, the firm stated that N8.33bn was spent monthly for a period of 12 months beginning from January to December 2021 on refinery rehabilitation.
The Federal Government has been making moves to get the country’s refineries back on stream, as Nigeria currently imports bulk of its refined petroleum products.
This has resulted in humongous subsidy spendings by the NNPC, the sole importer of petrol into Nigeria for more than four years and counting.
It was gathered that the Federal Government had processed $98m and N17.2bn as part payments for the ongoing rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refining Company.
The report stated that the government had made an initial payment of $194m, being the 15 per cent advance payment required for the rehabilitation of the facility, to Tecnimont SpA of Italy.
This was contained in the financial status update of the rehabilitation of PHRC as the project was financed by an equity contribution by its sponsor and loan by lenders (AfreximBank).
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