With the recent commencement of operations at the Port Harcourt Refinery, Nigeria now has nine completed refineries. However, only two of these refineries, Port Harcourt and Dangote, produce Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as fuel.
The completion of these refineries is a significant milestone in Nigeria’s efforts to increase its refining capacity and reduce its reliance on imported petroleum products. Here is a list of the nine refineries:
1. Edo Refinery and PetroChemical Company: This project is a wholly owned subsidiary of AIPCC Energy. It operates in two phases with capacities of 1,000 BPSD and 5,000 BPSD and has been commissioned and is fully operational.
2. Duport Midstream: Located in Edo State, this is a 2,500-BPD refinery that was completed in 2022 and started production in 2023.
3. Walter Smith refinery: The Walter Smith refinery is a 5,000-bpd oil refinery located in Imo State. The refinery started operations in 2020 with plans to expand its capacity to 50,000 bpd in future.
4. OPAC Refinery: This 10,000-bpd modular refinery located in Kwale, Delta state was completed in 2021 as part of the Federal Government’s effort to improve local crude oil refining.
5. Niger Delta Petroleum Refinery (Aradel): The initial 1,000 bbls/day AGO topping plant was commissioned in 2010. Currently, the 3-train, 11,000 bbls/day modular refinery produces Automotive Gas Oil, Dual Purpose Kerosene, Marine Diesel Oil, High-Pour Fuel Oil, and Naphtha.
6. Old Port-Harcourt refinery: Built and commissioned in 1965 with a refining capacity of 60,000 barrels of oil per day. In March 2021, the federal government awarded the repair of the refinery to Tecnimont SPA- an Italian company that would carry out repair works in phases.
7. Warri Refinery and Petrochemical Company (WRPC): The 125,000-bpd capacity WRPC was built and commissioned in 1978 at a cost of around $478 million. The refinery has never achieved full capacity utilization as production has declined steadily except in the early 1990’s, during which there was a brief upswing in production.
8. New Port-Harcourt refinery: In 1985, the federal government commissioned the New Port Harcourt refinery, built at a cost of $850 million. It has the capacity to refine 150,000 barrels of oil daily.
9. Dangote Refinery: This is a 650,000-bpd refinery located in Lekki, Lagos State. The refinery cost around $19 billion and was commissioned in May 2023. Oil refining started in late December 2023, and it started dispensing products to local and international markets as of May 2024.
