Buhari to inaugurate 5,000bpd refinery in Imo

President Muhammadu Buhari will on Tuesday lead a team of other top government officials, oil industry regulators, and stakeholders to Imo State for the inauguration of the 5,000 barrels-per-day Waltersmith Modular Refinery, The Punch has said.

This comes after the Waltersmith Group disclosed in a statement that it would break ground on a 45,000bpd refinery.

According to the statement, the modular refinery has a crude oil storage capacity of 60,000 barrels and is projected to deliver over 271 million litres per annum of refined petroleum products, including kerosene, diesel, naphtha and heavy fuel oils, to the domestic market, The Punch reports.

The Chairman, Waltersmith Group, Mr. Abdulrazaq Isa, said the first module of the refinery, to be inaugurated on Tuesday, would process 5,000bpd of crude oil.

“We are looking at 50,000bpd refining capacity that will come with the planned additional two modules; 25,000bpd and 20,000bpd refining capacity respectively which will then add PMS, aviation fuel and LPG to the product slates,” he added.

The statement said Waltersmith obtained the ‘Licence to Establish’ the refinery from the Department of Petroleum Resources in June 2015 and got the ‘Authority to Construct’ in March 2017.

It said the company then partnered with the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board and the Africa Finance Corporation to raise the required financing.