Dangote, Televeras, others seen creating fuel sufficiency in Nigeria, West Africa by 2017

The investment drive by Dangote Refinery in Nigeria, Televeras Group plan to make Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, the hub of oil products distribution network, and other stakeholders’ plan to build small refineries will soon see Nigeria and other West African countries having adequate supply of fuel by 2017. According to experts, with the coming on stream of Dangote’s 500,000 barrels of crude oil refining capacity in 2017 along with the efforts of marginal oil field operators, who are planning to set up refineries, coupled with the planned upgrade of the nation’s 445,000 capacity re- fineries, the country would have enough products and also the capacity to export some.
They said with the private sector coming into the business of oil refining the country’s perennial problem of importing fuel would be completely resolved. According to Babajide Soyedo, who was the general manager of Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company (WRPC), it is encouraging now that private investors are coming into the business. He also said that now is the best time for the government to deregulate the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry because the price of crude oil is now low. Soyode, who spoke to BusinessDay during the 80th birthday dinner organised for Festus Marinho, the first group managing direc- tor, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), in Lagos, said Nigeria alone is capable of achieving over one million barrels refining capacity per day by 2017 if the plans in the industry are concluded as planned. Dangote is putting up 500,000 barrels per day refinery in Lekki, Lagos, which is expected to come on stream by first quarter of 2018. Other smaller re- fineries like the one being planned by Niger Delta Petroleum Resources will also produce about 1,000 barrels per day and is also planning to upgrade to 6,000 barrels per day to produce the full grade. Also another indigenous company, Energia Petroleum, has in its plans to also establish a refinery in the nearest future. The marginal field producers are also likely to operate refineries in order to fight the challenges of bunkering of crude on the highland. It was also learnt that government is ready to en- courage building of small modular refineries.
Funsho Kupolukun, a former group managing director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), urged the government to encourage the private sec- tor to go into building of refineries. Recently, the government of Equatorial Guinea signed an agreement with Nigerian energy firm, Televeras Group, to build an oil storage hub in the West African country. The oil storage hub that would be built on the Bioko Island facility will have a total capacity of 1.34 mil- lion tons of crude oil and products such as gasoline, naphtha, jet fuel and fuel oil. It is expected to be the largest products storage facility in Africa, according to the company. When completed the hub would be able to service key oil supply and demand centres throughout the West African sub-region.