Nigerian government has invited investors interested in establishing modular refineries to step forward and do so as the country has flagged off the modular refinery programme.
While inspecting the Eleme Refinery in Port Harcourt that is under reconstruction, the minister of state petroleum, Timipre Sylva, said his ministry is commencing the programme, but warned that the criminality surrounding modular refineries will be out of it.
“The programme is on and we are expecting people will take advantage of the modular refinery programme. But you know when people begin to equate modular refinery with what is going on now; it criminality that is going on, and I think they don’t go together.
“The criminality remains what it is, and would be treated as such. Any persons engaging in crude oil refining without government recognition or license is risking prosecution. The laws are there.
“What is mostly going on in Port Harcourt and other parts of the Niger Delta is criminal activities. We cannot legalize those criminal activities. We must stop that activity by law enforcement, and that has started,“ the minister said.
He also assured that interested investors would get access to funding and other incentives from government. “Anybody who is interested in the modular refinery programme can access funding from the federal government,” he said.
On the current rehabilitation work going on at the Eleme Refinery, the minister said the Nigerian government is no lacking funding. ”We have already told the Nigeria public that the fund for this maintenance project are coming from the savings from the NNPC, from the federal government and form debt equity.
“At this point we are still working from the savings from NNPC; we have not had any need yet to access any debt for this project.
“Fund is not problem for this project. We have met all the milestone payment, right now they have submitted another milestone for payment. NNPC is evaluating it and am sure that they have the funds to pay for it,” Sylva said.
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