By John Meze
President Muhammudu Buhari, has commissioned, the 5,000 barrels per day Modular Refinery, built by Waltersmith Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited at Ibigwe, Ohaji/Egbema Local Government Area of Imo State.
President Buhari, also, performed the ground-breaking ceremony for another Refinery of about 45,000 barrels per day owned by the same company in the same area in Imo State.
According to the Group Managing Director of Waltersmith, Abdulrazaq Isa, the first module which was commissioned by the President on Tuesday, 24th of November 2020, has a 5,000 barrels per day Refining capacity that will come with another planned additional two modules of 20,000 and 25,000, refining capacities, respectively, which will then add Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), Aviation fuel and Liquefied Petroleum Gas(LPG) to the production slate.
The company, informed that the modular refinery has a crude oil storage capacity of about 60,000 barrels, projected deliver 271 million barrels per annum of refined petroleum products which includes, kerosene, diesel, naphtha and heavy fuel oils to the domestic market.
It further stated that the bulk of the crude oil for this first phase will come from the company’s upstream business with backup from the OML 53 (Ohaji South), Seplat/NNPC joint venture third party crude, currently, processed at Waltersmith’s Ibigwe flowstation and additionally from the 2020 marginal fields bid round for a nearby asset.
Waltersmith obtained the license to establish the Modular Refinery from the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), in June 2015 and received the authority to construct in March 2017.
The company, upon, receiving the go ahead order to construct, partnered with the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), and the African Finance Corporation (AFC), to raise the required finance. NCDMB hold an equity share of 30 per cent whereas AFC committed senior credit facility towards the project.
Speaking about the project, Simbi Wabote, the executive secretary of NCDMB, said, ” from the very day we keyed in to this project in line with the President’s aspiration to grow the country’s oil refining capacity, we felt very happy that we are associated with Waltersmith, a serious minded company.”
At a recent pre-commissioning visit to the refinery, Yusuf Usman, the NNPC Chief Operating Officer, gas and power, while speaking on the success of refinery, stated that,” It is a landmark achievement and it shows that we can actually refine our crude oil in-cou try.”
The company signed an EPC contract in June 2018 with a consortium of V.Fuel and Lambert Electrimec.
The construction of the modular refinery commenced in October 2018 and was delivered in less than 24 months, ahead of schedule but its official commissioning originally slated for May was postponed due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.