Plans to construct an oil refinery plant in Nigeria are in top gear after Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) announced the development during his inspection tour at the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KPRC).
Though there is no indication of how many plants will be constructed, the refineries are intended to provide sufficient petroleum products in the country and that they will be constructed at the site of the existing refineries in the country.
Nigeria currently has 4 refineries, 2 of which are located in Port-Harcourt and Rivers State as 1 is situated in Warri and the fourth one is in Kaduna. In fact, 3 out of the 6 units in Kaduna refinery are down and there is a need to turn around the refinery as the country cannot free itself from the fuel supply challenges.
Furthermore, the existing refineries are now old with over 30-40 years and constructing new ones will provide back-up services that will ensure constant supply of products in times of challenges.
However, the corporation is working closely with the security agencies regarding the pipelines issue and prevents them from being destroyed. Moreover, NNPC is concentrating more on what is important to the oil industry. Meanwhile, Nigeria had signed revised oil swap after it investigated previous deals which were alleged to have been riddled with fraud.
In this regard, Plans to construct an oil refinery plant in Nigeria will go along way to cementing the country as the top producer of oil products in Africa
