Petrojam reins in oil losses
Published:Thursday | April 7, 2022 | 12:08 AM
The once-beleaguered Petrojam, the state-owned oil refinery that racked up billions of dollars in unaccounted oil losses between 2013 and 2017, has reported significant improvement in reducing leakage of the commodity in its 2020-2021 annual report, which was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday.
In a 2018 compendium report on Petrojam, Auditor General Pamela Monroe Ellis said that over the five-year period, the entity reported that it used 1.5 billion barrels of oil, valuing approximately $12.8 billion, during normal refinery production, but could not account for 600,684 barrels valuing $5.2 billion.
The auditor general reported that Petrojam’s average annual unaccountable oil loss of 0.75 per cent over the five-year period was almost two times its own key performance indicator of 0.4 per cent.
However, Petrojam is reporting that oil loss at the end of fiscal year 2020-2021 stood at 45,000 barrels, or 0.44 per cent of the year’s total crude throughput of 11.2 million barrels.
The company said the performance was 0.04 per cent above target.
According to Petrojam, the team dedicated to investigating losses continues to work on initiatives to reduce losses above the tolerable limit of 0.4 per cent.
Steps taken to reduce oil losses include the recommissioning of the company’s largest crude-storage tank; implementation of an improved system for tank draining; putting in place a mechanism for daily reconciliation of oil movement and storage; ongoing routine dives to inspect undersea pipelines; and a tank-repair programme.
However, Petrojam observed that oil loss is a standard feature of oil-refining industries by virtue of the nature of the processes involved in converting crude oil into saleable finished products.
Donation policy
Another major issue that was flagged by the auditor general in her 2018 report was Petrojam’s donation policy, which lacked transparency and required more safeguards.
In its annual report, the company says it has redrafted its corporate social responsibility policy to include guidelines to be used in reviewing requests for charitable contributions and sponsorship.
“In order to qualify for support, due diligence will be conducted to assess the validity of each request and to ensure that the established checklist of sponsorship/donation criteria are followed,” the report states. It said the revamped policy is to be presented to the board for approval.
Meanwhile, Petrojam said that there were 17 major safety incidents for the year in review. There were four fires, a similar number of oil spills, five medical referrals, and four lost-time incidents.
However, the company said that there were no fatalities or serious accidents in the period under review.
The company’s employees were exposed to 41 safety-training sessions for a total of 553 man-hours. Topics covered included personal safety, process safety, and incident response.