The space may be brightened for the energy sector in Nigeria following the statement made by the Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti Baru, that the construction of Greenfield Refineries would commence by in Kano and Kaduna this year.
Making this known during a town hall meeting in Abuja, he said that the refineries would source their crude from Niger Republic.
He added that the designs for the proposed refineries in Kano and Kaduna were ready, saying their construction would commence this year, Daily Trust reports.
He said the Kaduna State Government was also championing a proposal to co-locate another refinery close to the KRPC with the intent of sourcing Nigerien crude for its operations.
On the existing refineries, Baru said that the NNPC was inching closer to arriving at the choice of financiers for the Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited (PHRC), Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited (WRPC) and the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited.
The development holds the promise to boost petroleum products supply and distribution in the country.
Baru said agreements on the potential financiers for the refineries were being fine-tuned, following which the endorsement of the NNPC Board would be affected this month.
“We are pushing towards the final selection of our financiers and we expect that when that is done, we’ll get the agreements and present them to our board, meeting this month, to secure their endorsement. And once we have the funding, we would start the rehabilitation of the refineries towards a 90 per cent capacity utilisation, per stream day, before the end of 2019,” Baru said.
He described the procedure for electing the financiers as painstaking, noting, however, that it was necessary to enable a desired closure on the subject.
Baru said the corporation was also encouraging new refining capacities to come on board, adding that there were two consortia that have indicated interest to co-locate refineries in Warri and Port Harcourt.
He said that the NNPC would provide whatever utility services the companies might require, such as power, processed steam, water and land, stressing that the corporation had agreed, in broad terms, on areas of collaboration to fast track the development.
