MOSCOW (MRC) -- Nigeria is holding talks to give up majority stakes in all four of its moribund oil refineries, Mele Kyari, head of the state oil firm NNPC, said, as per Hydrocarbonprocessing.
He disclosed that discussions were taking place on an operating model in which the state oil company NNPC or the government would be a minority shareholder in the assets. "It means there will be more scrutiny of shareholders and also becoming more efficient to operate. That conversation is on the table,” said Kyari, NNPC’s group managing director, without specifying how the government planned to transfer ownership, or to whom.
The refineries have for years worked only sporadically due to chronic underinvestment. NNPC said in April that it had shut them all down to secure funding for their refurbishment, and would no longer manage them when they reopened. The four refineries are located at three sites in Kaduna, Warri and Port Harcourt. Kyari said the pipelines that feed them with crude oil were badly damaged.
The refineries processed almost no crude in the 13 months to end June, according to NNPC data last month, even though their operating costs totaled USD367 million.
As per MRC, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has fired 850 workers, many of them from refineries, amidst the coronavirus pandemic, an oil union said. The workers are both skilled and unskilled contractors, including technicians who helped maintain Nigeria’s oil refineries, said Lumumba Okugbawa, general secretary of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, speaking on the phone.
As MRC informed earlier, NNPC has issued a crude-for-product swap tender, the company said. The Direct Sale Direct Purchase (DSDP) tender document did not specify the start date or the quantities involved but said the arrangement would be for one year. The tender is set to close on May 2 at noon (1100 GMT), NNPC said on its official Twitter account. Crude-for-product swap contracts are the country’s main avenue to meet the bulk of its gasoline and gasoil needs.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia dropped in January-June 2020 by 7% year on year to 328,000 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the main decrease in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia rose in the first six months of 2020 by 21% year on year to 105,300 tonnes. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
MRC