Whereas government may have sealed a fresh deal with private partners to revamp three existing refineries in the country located in Kaduna, Warri and Port Harcourt, the partnership will rake in investment to the tune of $2 billion (N720 billion).
Besides, about 26 private firms have indicated their interest in sub deals of the emerging revival drive of the refineries.
These were the revelations of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, on Wednesday at an oil and gas conference in Cape Town, South Africa.
He recalled that the three refineries, with a total capacity of 450,000 barrel per day (bpd), would reduce Nigeria’s reliance on imports when they come back to shape from the emerging repair deals.
While keeping the bid winners to his chest, Kachukwu averred that government will announce the selected partners by January or February next year, hinting that “we are almost at a threshold of finalising the process of selection”.
By this development, the minister has successfully doused the speculations that government’s plan for the refineries was to sale them as scraps to their cronies at the expense of Nigerians.
Kachukwu further noted that with the Dangote refinery at 650,000 (bpd) coming on stream in 2019 at a time the national refineries would be in shape, there should be enough to meet local needs.
Business Hilights recalls that earlier last year, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had announced it has launched bidding to find partners to overhaul its ailing refineries, which has been producing skeletally in recent time due to decades of mismanagement and widespread graft.
However, it appeared that a highly criticized plan B by the government to draft in Chevron, Total and ENI, to allow them take over the management and operation of the ailing refineries, failed leading to the new idea of investors that will repair the three refineries.
