Petrocam Trading Nigeria Limited has suspended its initial plan to construct a refinery in Nigeria.
The company’s Managing Director, Mr Patrick Ilo, made this revelation in Lagos during the official inauguration of its newest solar-powered and eleventh filling station.
Unveiling of the eleventh filling station – The company’s Administration and Sales Manager, Eyo Oghogho, said the new filling station has ten underground tanks of 45,000 litres capacity each. Nine will be used for storing Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), while one will be used for storing Automated Gas Oil (AGO).
“At Petrocam outlets, we ensure that a litre is a litre. Another thing is that when you come to Petrocam filling station, you are sure you will get your PMS, diesel and gas. You don’t need to go somewhere else to get your gas.”
The company still intends to open more filling stations – Oghogho explained that plans are underway to unveil new filling stations in major state capitals across the country in the coming months.
“All our outlets for now are based in Lagos. We are intending to extend our frontiers to other state capitals in the next couple of months and from there, we will start expanding to other locations in Nigeria.”
Reason for the suspension
According to Oghogho, the firm has no plans to invest in refining in the country, until the deregulation of the downstream sub-sector of the Nigerian oil and gas industry is carried out. He said the company is waiting for the right atmosphere to invest in crude refining business.
“We at Petrocam Nigeria are presently not engaging in the building of refinery in the country. We are looking forward to a situation when the sub-sector would be fully deregulated since the industry is partially deregulated now.”
Government should work on prices on petroleum products – According to Oghogho, the company might only consider going into refining when government removes cap price on petroleum product, saying “until then it’s not part of our plans at all.”
