Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation to Build Two Refineries

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Levi Ajuonuma, General Manager of Public Relations at Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), announced that the company will work with international oil companies to build two refineries in southern Nigeria to meet the country's demand of refined oil.

The refineries will be in the port cities of Okrika and Brass at the Niger Delta in southern Nigeria. The designed refining capacity of both the refineries is 200,000 barrels per day. NNPC's report submitted to the country's Ministry of Mines and Power stated that the commencement ceremonies of the new refineries are slated for 2011 or 2012.

Ajuonuma said that with the addition of the refineries, Nigeria's daily crude oil processing capacity will go up to 845,000 barrels a day. Presently, it takes 600,000 barrels of crude oil a day to meet Nigeria's need of 30 million liters of gasoline. Therefore, even if Nigeria's existing refineries in Warri and Kaduna run at maximum capacity, the country will still need to import fuel.

NNPC currently operates four refineries in the Kaduna and Warri regions and two at Port Harcourt. The refineries' total capacity is about 445,000 barrels a day. In addition, NNPC has 22 oil storages, 5,210 kilometers of oil pipelines and 24 pumping stations.

Nigeria's fuel imports are partly caused by the damage done to oil transportation pipelines between Escravos and Warri, and in the Kaduna region in February 2006. Because of the damage, the refinery at Port Harcourt is now only running at 65%-70% of its designed 150,000-barrel-a-day capacity. This refinery is now producing 3.5 million liters of gasoline a day. The refineries in Warri and Kaduna regions are working at 75%-80% of their capacities because of the shortage in crude oil supply.

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