The combined installed capacity utilization of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s refineries. located in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna increased by about 29 per centage points in January, the corporation has said.

A release posted by Ndu Nghamadu, NNPC’s spokesperson, said the 29 per cent increase is an improvement when compared with records of December 2016.

According to the latest NNPC Monthly Financial and Operations Report for January released in Abuja, the corporation said the capacity utilization of the refineries rose to 36.73 per cent in January, 2017, as against 7.55 per cent in the previous month of December, 2016. The report attributed the improvement to the implementation of the 12 Business Focus Areas (BUFAS) strategy introduced by the Group Managing Director, Maikanti Baru.

According to the report, the refineries benefitted from the introduction of a new Refineries Business Model under the 12 BUFAS strategy which has transformed them from "tolling plants to merchant plants" thereby placing them on the path of profitability.

The statement noted that the Port Harcourt Refining Company, PHRC, and Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company, WRPC, also posted surpluses of N5.1 billion and N404 million respectively. Under the new refinery model, each refinery purchases crude at export parity price, processes and sells the corresponding products on its own account.

This is different from the previous Tolling Plant model where the refinery does not take title to the crude, but rather charges a tolling/processing fee.