The Delta State Government has said it would build three modular refineries of 10,000 barrel/day capacity each this year.
According to the Commissioner for Oil and Gas, Hon. Mofe Pirah, who spoke with reporters at the state’s stand at the ongoing first Nigerian International Petroleum Summit (NIPS) in Abuja said, the refineries, woould be sited in Kwale, Okpai and Sapele.
He said that aside securing the certificates and acquiring the sites, the engineering works had begun, but that the bureaucracy at the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and funding were delaying the flag-off of construction.
His words: “Delta State already has three modular refineries waiting to take off in Sapele, Nkwale, and Okpai of combined capacity of less than 10,000 barrel per day.
“You know the rigour you go through with DPR, with funding and all of that. Some of them have gotten certificates, some have acquired the sites and engineering works are in progress. This year, they will start a construction.”
Also speaking, the Consultant to Delta State Government on the Industrial Park Project (IPP), Dr. David Ige, said 100,000 jobs were underway from the project.
He said Governor Ifeanyi Okowe had initiated the project in Kwale, where the state was leveraging on its own gas competitive advantage for industrialisation.
Continuing, he said that the park, designed to be the largest single small and medium manufacturing location in the country, would tap from the marginal field in Kwale area.
He added that: “the idea is that we are trying to create a corridor for the manufacturing of glass, ceramic, and plastics. The reason being that the raw materials are within 50 to 70 kilometres radius of the Kwale Industrial Park.”
Ige said that the park would boast of the huge reliability in gas and power in the country compared with anywhere else.