Some relief may come the way of Nigerians with commissioning of the 5000 barrels per day modular refinery by President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday this week, as this is bound to reduce marginally the country level of dependence on imported Premium Motor Spirit.
With the commissioning of the Waltersmith’s refinery, its immediate environments and by extension some parts of eastern Nigeria would be significantly served by the refinery. This would however not reduce significant pressure on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) both on the price of the product and also on its importation as it would service only a fraction of the market
Some oil and gas industry operators have said that even when the four national refineries were working with 445,000 barrels per day capacity, the country still augment what she had, they however stated that with the coming up of the plant others that are already in the business should be encouraged to complete their projects.
They also believe that some of the marketers within the environment that have not been able to import the product due to the issue of foreign exchange may take advantage of the plant around them to get direct product supply to them for onward transportation to their customers.
The modular refinery has a crude oil storage capacity of 60,000 barrels and is projected to deliver over 271 million liters per annum of refined petroleum products which include Kerosene, Diesel, Naphtha and Heavy Fuel Oils to the domestic market.
The bulk of crude oil supply for this phase will come from Waltersmith’s upstream business with backup from the OML 53 (Ohaji South) Seplat/NNPC JV third party crude currently processed at Waltersmith Ibigwe Flowstation and additionally from the 2020 Marginal Fields Bid Round for a nearby asset.
Other government officials expected at the ceremony includes, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timpre Sylva and His Excellency, the Imo State Governor, Senator Hope Uzodinma, oil industry regulators and stakeholders.
Also there would be groundbreaking ceremony of the company’s 45,000 barrels per day refinery. The event will also feature goodwill messages from top industry players, partners and community leaders.
At a recent pre-commissioning visit to the refinery, Yusuf Usman, Chief Operating Officer, Gas & Power speaking on the success of the refinery, stated that “It is a landmark achievement and it shows that we can actually refine our crude oil in-country.”
The modular refinery has a crude oil storage capacity of 60,000 barrels and is projected to deliver over 271 million liters per annum of refined petroleum products which include Kerosene, Diesel, Naphtha and Heavy Fuel Oils to the domestic market.
The bulk of crude oil supply for this phase will come from Waltersmith’s upstream business with backup from the OML 53 (Ohaji South) Seplat/NNPC JV third party crude currently processed at Waltersmith Ibigwe Flowstation and additionally from the 2020 Marginal Fields Bid Round for a nearby asset.
Abdulrazaq Isa, Chairman, Waltersmith Group says “the first module being commissioned on Tuesday is 5,000bpd refining capacity. We are looking at 50,000bpd refining capacity that will come with the planned additional 2 modules; 25,000bpd and 20,000bpd refining capacity respectively which will then add PMS, Aviation fuel and LPG to the product slates.”
Waltersmith obtained the ‘License to Establish’ the modular refinery from DPR in June 2015 and got the ‘Authority to Construct’ in March 2017. The company then partnered with the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) and Africa Finance Corporation (AFC) to raise the required financing. NCDMB are 30 percent equity partners while AFC committed senior secured credit facility towards the project.
“From the very day we keyed into this project in line with the President’s aspiration to grow the country’s oil refining capacity, we felt very happy that we are associated with Waltersmith, a serious-minded company”, said Simbi Wabote, Executive Secretary, NCDMB.
