Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, has issued 21 licences to investors to establish new refineries in the country Four investors had earlier been issued licences to construct new plants in the country. This was disclosed by DPR in a statement at the weekend. The statement said: “There are currently 25 private refinery licences granted to companies with 21 in the Licence to Establish, LTE, category, while four are in the Approval to Construct, ATC, category.”
The agency noted that three out of the 25 licensed companies are billed to construct conventional stick-build plants, while 22 will construct modular units with a proposed combined refining capacity of 1,429,000bpd. The statement noted that DPR has not withdrawn the licence of any private refinery. It disclosed that rather, it is in alignment with the Federal Government’s aspiration of improving the country’s refining capacity by strengthening its regulatory oversight function. DPR said that in line with its commitment to entrench transparency in oil and gas regulatory function, it has to make some clarifications.
There are three stages of licencing for establishment of private refineries in Nigeria, namely; Licence to Establish, Approval to Construct and Licence to Operate, LTO. “DPR granted LTE to 21 companies with a validity period of 18 months in 2002. In 2004, 17 out of the earlier granted LTE were granted ATC for a 24 month validity period. “The Department in 2007 reviewed the existing guidelines and a new guiding document ‘Guidelines for the Establishment of Hydrocarbon Processing Plants in Nigeria’ was introduced to ensure that only committed investors were licenced,” the statement added. Meanwhile, the fuel scarcity, which showed improvement last week, has worsened in Lagos and other parts of the country.
Investigations showed that many filling stations did not have commercial stocks of the product over the weekend in Lagos and its environs. Consequently, there were long queues of vehicles at many filling stations visited by our correspondent. Operators cashed in on the situation to sell fuel at exorbitant prices, ranging between N100 and N300 per liter. The situation also culminated in the appearance of black market operators, who were seen hawking petrol in jerry cans along major roads at between N1, 000 and N2, 000 for five liters. Operators, who preferred not to be named, said they had to pass through much difficulty in bringing fuel from depots to filling stations because of logistic challenges.
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