EMEKA OKOROANYANWU
Two new refineries will come on stream soon, said the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
One of the refineries located in Rivers State is a 10,000-barrel capacity facility made up of two modules of 5,000 each, and have reached mechanical completion stage.
The second, a 7,000-barrel capacity modular refinery is located in Kwale, Delta State.
Disclosing this recently, Senior Technical Adviser to Nigeria’s Petroleum Minister on Refineries and Downstream Infrastructure, Rabiu Suleiman said the two modular refineries are among the 43 licensed by the Federal government to ease fuel supply problems locally.
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Some of the other modular refineries licensed by the Federal Government are located in Lagos, Imo and Nassarawa states.
Nigeria is a leading producer of crude oil and gas, but the country has relied heavily on imported refined petroleum products to meet local demand.
Suleiman said, “we have 250,000 barrels licensed refinery that was given to Petrolex. Another 100,000 barrels refinery was given to a company in Port Harcourt. There are many other modular refineries being established, from 1000 to 30000 barrels capacity.
“The objective of modular refinery is to ensure that the big capital requirement, which seems to be the major reason why refineries are not established is overcome by building small size refineries.”
According to him, about 10 of the refineries have been issued authority to construct, meaning that they have already been given a licence to establish, and have been certified by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR).
“Refineries cannot be too many in Nigeria. We want to ensure that all our crude is not exported. We want crude to be refined in Nigeria so that we can take advantage of the total value chain of crude oil conversion,” Suleiman, who currently chairs Federal Government’s zero gas flaring efforts.”