The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has expressed interest in having a 20 per cent minority equity stake in Dangote Refinery, Lagos, and other refineries in the country.
Mustapha Yakubu, NNPC’s Chief Operating Officer, Refining and Petrochemicals, unfolded the investment plans Wednessday at the end of a two-day Nigeria Oil and Gas Opportunity Fair (NOGOF), 2021, tagged: “Leveraging Opportunities and Synergies for Post Pandemic Recovery of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry.”
He stated also that, the corporation is also interested in partnering with the African Refinery in Port Harcourt, a co-location facility, the CNCEC Chinese group, which is interested in building two refineries in Nigeria, the Waltersmith modular plant, in addition to collaborating with Azikel refineries on condensate production.
The NNPC chief said discussions were already ongoing with the Dangote Group for the acquisition of the stake, stating further that the collaboration will further ensure undisrupted product supply to Nigerians when the deal materialises.
According to him, one of its divisions, the Greenfield Refining Projects Division (GRPD) was handling the negotiations. “We have what we call the green field refinery and the Greenfield Refining Projects Division (GRPD) of the NNPC. What we do, our strategy is to collaborate and seek strategic partnerships with private investors.”
“At the moment, we have Dangote Refinery, which is the 650,000 capacity barrels per day plus a mini 80,000 tonnes per annum petrochemical plant. What are we doing there? I can tell you today that we are seeking to have a 20 per cent minority stake in Dangote Refinery as part of our collaboration and you know that there’s a huge quantity of crude for that refinery.”
The 650,000 barrels per day (bpd) integrated refinery, expected to process a variety of light and medium grades of crude, including petrol and diesel as well as jet fuel and polypropylene is owned by Nigeria’s Dangote Group and is worth about $15 billion.
It is designed to produce up to 50 million litres of petrol and 15 million litres of diesel a day, roughly 10.4 million tonnes of the product, 4.6 million tonnes of diesel, and 4 million tonnes of jet fuel per year, in addition to having a fertiliser plant, which will utilise the refinery by-products as raw materials.
