The Federal Government has announced that 38 mini-modular refineries investors have indicated interests in the establishment of modular refineries in the Niger Delta as part of the Federal Government’s new vision for the area.
Senior Special Assistant to the Vice-President on Media and Publicity, Laolu Akande on Saturday, disclosed this in a statement made available to pressmen.
He said the information was part of the reports received at a recent end-of-the-year review meeting of the Niger Delta Inter-Ministerial Committee presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
According to Akande, 10 of the refineries investors are at advanced stages of development.
“The advanced stage of development means that these projects have passed the Licence to Establish stage, while some have the Authority to Construct licence or close to having it because they have met some critical requirements in the licensed stage.
“There are three stages in the process of refinery establishment; Licence to Establish, Authority to Construct and Licence to Operate,”
The presidential spokesman added that so far, 10 modular refineries are located in five out of the nine states in the Niger Delta region.
He listed the states to include Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Delta, Edo and Imo.
Mr. Akande gave further revelations that two out of the10 – Amakpe Refinery meant to be located in Akwa Ibom, and OPAC Refinery to be based in Delta State – have their mini-refineries modules already fabricated, assembled and containerised overseas, ready for shipment to Nigeria for installation.
He put the proposed refining capacities of the 10 licensed refineries at 300,000 barrels.
What is a modular refinery?
A modular refinery by definition is a prefabricated processing plant that has been constructed on skid mounted surfaces, with each structure containing a portion of the entire refining process plant connected together by interstitial piping to form an easily manageable process.
History has shown in Nigeria that large scale, full service plants are difficult to maintain and often function at the level of small scale modular plants anyway, despite their size and heavy output potential. The Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna plants have been almost non-functional due to a poor maintenance culture and the profound difficulty of Nigeria in sustaining the industrial ethics needed for large scale refining.