The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has disclosed plans to increase the current capacity of its refineries to one million barrels of crude oil per day from its current 445,000 bpd. Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mr. Maikanti Baru, stated this at Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Oloibiri Lecture Series and Energy Forum 2018.
Baru, noted that the cooperation is looking at the total revamp and comprehensive rehabilitation of the nations refineries to ensure that the country refines its crude in the country. The NNPC is in the process of reversing the trend of massive importation of finished products as this is unsustainable, therefore, upgrades of our refineries is the way to go.
On gas, He regretted that, with all the resources gas exploration, the country still lags behind in the renewable energy development and usage possibly due to high costs of developing them when compared to fossil-based fuels.
Baru however said NNPC has identified Seven Critical Gas Development Projects (7CGDP) scheduled to deliver about 3.4billion standard cubic feet of gas per day on an accelerated basis to bridge a projected medium term supply gap by 2020. He noted that the 7CGDP would be executed aggressively on a sustained level.
The 7CGDP include, development of the
- 4.3 trillion cubic feet (TCF) Assa North/Ohaji South field.
- Development of the 6.4 TCF Unitized Gas fields (Samabri-Biseni, Akri-Oguta, Ubie-Oshi and Afuo-Ogbainbri)
- Development of 7TCF NPDC’s OML 26, 30 and 42.
- Development of 2.2 TCF Shell Petroleum Development Company, (SPDC)
- JV Gas Supply to Brass Fertilizer Company,
- Cluster development of 5 TCF OML 13 to support the expansion of Seven Energy Uquo Gas Plant
- Cluster development of 10 TCF Okpokunou/Tuomo West (OML 35& 62)
On renewable energy investment, he said the potential to increase the energy capacity and availability will be achieved with its abundance, stating that, currently, it has a large hydro-power potential of 11,250MW, 11million hectares of forest and woodland.
The country currently has four refineries, two in Port Harcourt (PHRC), and one each in Kaduna (KRPC) and Warri (WRPC). The refineries have a combined installed capacity of 445,000 bpd.