The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu on Wednesday signed an agreement with the President of the Republic of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou and the Energy Minister of the Republic of Niger, Mr. Foumakoye Gado to construct a refinery in the border town between the Republic of Niger and Katsina State.
According to a statement by the ministry, “A mutually beneficial agreement was reached for the construction of a refinery in the border town between the Republic of Niger and Katsina State, Nigeria and a crude oil pipeline from the Republic of Niger to the new refinery. The statement added that, definitive bilateral and technical agreements to be signed in coming days.
According to the statement, in line with the commitment to collaborative work across the region to ensure definitive solutions to the challenges of the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry.
Recall that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) recently announced that it is inching closer to arriving at the choice of financiers for the Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited (PHRC), Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited (WRPC) and the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company Limited.
The Group Managing Director, NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru who disclosed this while briefing members of staff of the corporation on the fuel supply situation in the country said the agreements on the potential financiers for the refineries were being fine-tuned.
“We are pushing towards the final selection of our financiers and we expect that when that is done, we’ll get the agreements and present them to our board, meeting this month to secure their endorsement and once we have the funding, we would start the rehabilitation of the refineries towards a 90 per cent capacity utilization per stream day before the end of 2019,” Dr. Baru affirmed.