A group of investors have acquired a 100,000-barrel per day, BPD, refinery in Turkey, from British Petroleum, BP, and are in the process of relocating the plant to Nigeria for installation near the Port-Harcourt Refinery.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, in a statement in Abuja on Tuesday, also noted that another brownfield refinery with similar capacity would be built by another group of investors near the Warri refinery.
NNPC said both projects were under its collocation initiative designed to boost local refining capacity and to end the era of petroleum products importation.
Speaking on the projects in an interview published in the NNPC News, a monthly publication of the Corporation, Mr. Maikanti Baru, Group Managing Director of the NNPC, said it was part of efforts being made to achieve self-sufficiency in local refining, besides the rehabilitation of the refineries.
He said, “A group of investors have commenced the process of relocating a refinery that used to be owned by BP from Turkey to Nigeria to be installed near the Port Harcourt Refinery under the NNPC refinery collocation initiative.
“Our collocation initiative aimed at getting private sector investors to bring in brownfield refineries so that they can share facilities is also yielding results.
“For example, there is one that is going to be brought in from Turkey to be located near the Port-Harcourt Refinery. It’s not a modular refinery; it’s a normal refinery with about 100,00bpd capacity.
”It was owned by BP, but it has been sold off now to the companies that want to bring it over from Turkey to install it here.”
Baru further explained that a similar plan to establish a brownfield refinery near the Warri Refinery was also in the offing.
“There is another one of about the same size being looked at to be sited near the Warri Refinery. But the one for Port-Harcourt is at a more advanced stage.
”Our drive at the NNPC, as a leader in the industry, is to expand our local refining capacity and make Nigeria a global refining hub,” he said.
