By Adedapo Adesanya
Waltersmith Petroman Oil Limited has completed its 5,000 barrels per day Phase 1 modular refinery located in Ibigwe, Imo State.
The completion of the facility will help boost Nigeria’s local refining capabilities.
Lauding the effort of the company, the Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr Mele Kyari, during a pre-commissioning visit to the plant, said that the modular refinery was part of Nigeria’s push towards energy sufficiency.
Mr Kyari said it reinforces the federal government’s agenda of increasing local refining capacity, adding that it will also enhance value addition to the hydrocarbon resources and employment generation.
Represented by Mr Yusuf Usman, NNPC’s Chief Operating Officer, Gas and Power, he said, “It is a landmark achievement and it shows that we can actually refine our crude oil in-country.”
The NNPC boss assured that the state oil company and other key stakeholders will collaborate with relevant entities to provide Waltersmith with all the necessary support it needs to operate and achieve its growth plans for the refinery.
“We will work closely with Waltersmith to ensure that it gets enough crude feedstock it needs to operate seamlessly. We are also looking forward to Phase 2 of the project when the refinery will start producing premium motor spirit (PMS) which we largely need in this country,” Mr Kyari said.
The 5,000 barrels per day modular refinery is scheduled for official commissioning on October 26, 2020, with products truck-out beginning immediately, having concluded off-take arrangements with select firms.
On the part of the Chairman of the company, Mr Abdulrasaq Isah, “We will be producing 271 million litres of petroleum products to meet some of the requirement of South Eastern market.”
Mr Isah said that Waltersmith decided to embark on the modular refinery project as a strategy to address incessant pipeline vandalism and theft of its crude oil products.
“As we began to work on the modular refinery project, we started to see the economic value and impact on Nigeria. The project will also ensure import substitution, energy security for the nation, lower of the company’s operating cost and create lots of jobs,” the Chairman said.
He noted that the company plans to significantly expand the refinery’s production capacity to 50,000 barrels of crude oil per day. It is expected to refine diesel, kerosene, Heavy Fuel Oil (HFO) and Naphtha.
Waltersmith Refining and Petrochemical Company is a Joint venture (JV) between Waltersmith Petroman Oil Limited, a leading independent Nigerian Energy company with 70 per cent equity, and the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) with 30 per cent equity, with significant funding support from the African Finance Corporation (AFC).
Waltersmith Petroman was established as an E&P Company in 1996 and successfully acquired the Ibigwe Marginal Field (OML-16) license in 2005 and delivered the first oil in 2008.
Dipo Olowookere