NNPC seeks equity participation in six private refinery projects

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says it is has identified at least six private refinery projects in which it intends to seek equity participation.

Kennie Obateru, group general manager, group public affairs division of NNPC, made this known in a statement on Monday.

He said five of them are at the development stage with the Dangote Refinery being the largest of them.

Last week, there were reports that the NNPC had initiated talks with the Dangote Group on the purchase of a 20 percent minority equity stake in the 650,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery.

Obateru said the move is in line with the federal government’s directive which provides the mandatory participation of NNPC in any privately-owned refinery that exceeds a capacity of 50,000 barrels per day.

He said the consideration also aligns with its statutory role of safeguarding national energy security.

Obateru noted that NNPC has a dual role of providing stewardship for the nation’s hydrocarbon resources and adding value to the resources for the benefit of all Nigerians and other stakeholders.

He said these roles enable it to achieve the twin objectives of providing energy security for the country and stimulating the nation’s economic development and growth.

Obateru added that NNPC’s strategic objective to ensure energy security and stimulate economic growth with limited resources requires it to consider strategic partnerships with competent investors in sectors of the oil and gas value chain especially where it currently operates on a sole risk basis.

“The oil refining sector is one of such segments where NNPC is revisiting its strategy in order to strengthen domestic refining capacity and guarantee national energy security,” the statement read.

“The new vision is to grow domestic refining capacity, improve petroleum products supply from our local refineries and become a net exporter of petroleum products.

“The corporation assures that the move to seek equity participation in the private refineries would not undercut its commitment to the rehabilitation of its own refineries and strengthen the domestic refining sector, stressing that the overall goal is to boost the nation’s refining capacity with a view to becoming a net exporter of petroleum products in the soonest possible time and boosting the nation’s economy.”