Nigeria plans new refinery at Katsina-Niger Republic border town

The Federal Government of Nigeria is working to build a new petroleum refinery at the President Muhammadu Buhari home state, Katsina in the North-West, Nigeria.

There is already an understanding reached with Niger Republic to build the refinery in the border town between the Republic of Niger and Kastina State, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources has said.

“The technical agreement, which is to be signed soon, would include building of crude oil pipeline from Niger to the new refinery”, The Guardian said.

This was disclosed yesterday as the outcome of a delegation led by the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu to the President of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou and the Energy Minister of that country, Foumakoye Gado.

It had said on its Twitter handle that the visit “to Niger Republic will lead to a definite agreement for the design and construction of a new refinery to be located at a border town between Nigeria and Niger.”

While the All Progressives Congress (APC)- lead government has failed in its promise to build at least one refinery each year, the move would boost availability of petroleum products in the country, the petroleum ministry said.

Nigeria’s Niger Delta region, in the Southern Nigeria is oil-rich. However, as a result of struggle for resource control, militancy activities in the region has increased and this has affected oil production in Nigeria. 

Currently, the downstream industry in Nigeria is well established. NNPC has four refineries, two in Port Harcourt (PHRC), and one each in Kaduna (KRPC) and Warri (WRPC). The refineries have a combined installed capacity of 445,000 bpd