Nigeria has announced great progress in its talks with Niger Republic to build a joint oil refinery that is capable of handling 150,000 barrels per day, in a government-to-government inspired initiative.
The facility, which is planned to be built in a border town in Katsina between both countries, would come with an associated crude oil pipeline linking it to oil fields in Niger Republic.
It is expected to be funded with private sector finance and managed as well by private investors, although it will be supervised by the governments of both countries. The refinery is also coming at a time when Nigeria is yet to get its four refineries to work at full capacity despite reports of huge funds spent to revive them in the past.
The joint task team inaugurated by President Muhammadu Buhari, alongside his Niger Republic counterpart, Mahamadou Issoufou, would by December 2018, come up with a detailed project implementation roadmap.
The roadmap would contain amongst other things, bankable feasibility studies for the refinery and associated pipeline project; optimal project site and pipeline routes; security plan; as well as selected consortia of investors for the projects, which ultimately will tell both countries how prudent it would be to build the refinery.
The teams jointly headed by Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resource, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, and his counterpart from Niger Republic, Foumakoye Gado, would be expected to submit their report after which the implementation of the project could commence.
Though no estimate as to how much the project would cost has been made, it is, however, expected that financial commitments running into billions of dollars would be needed from private sector financiers.
