The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has revealed a plan that will help address our dependency on oil importation by encouragement of investors to to build refineries within the premises of existing ones.
Speaking with reporters in Kaduna, the corporation’s Group Managing Director (GMD), Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu noted: “What is obtainable is that most of our refineries are close to 30 to 40 years old, we need to look at building new refineries in the same land space where they can share facilities so that you will have something to lean on when these old ones are beginning to kick out.”
But, beyond the readiness of government’s readiness to allow investors to share facilities within existing refineries, some private firms have already bought into domestic refining business. One of such companies the Dangote Oil Refining Company, which has started the construction of a 650,000 barrel per day capacity refinery in Lagos. The company has a plan to begin by 2018.
Also, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) has secured a large expance of land to build a refinery in Koigi State. The association, it was learnt, got an offer from a Californian firm (Kanen Refinery) to build a $70 million refinery within a year.
According IPMAN’s Vice Chairman, Alhaji Abubakar Dankingari, the modular refinery, which was built some 41 years ago (1974) in California where it will be dismantled, transported to Nigeria and reassembled. A local firm, Green Energy International Ltd, recently secured a license from the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) for Modular Refinery to produce diesel and other refined products.
There were also reports that President Buhari granted approval to 65 indigenous firms in August to build modular refineries.
