Nigerian Company Plans to Complete New Oil Refinery by 2025

LAGOS (Capital Markets in Africa) — BUA Group, which owns Nigeria’s second-biggest cement plant, said it plans to finish building a 200,000-barrel-per-day refinery by 2025.

“We are looking to between three and four years” to complete construction, Chief Executive Officer Abudul Samad Rabiu told reporters in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital.

The company on Wednesday signed an agreement with France-based Axens SA to build the facility in Nigeria’s southeastern Akwa Ibom state, Rabiu said, declining to disclose the cost of the project. The ground-breaking for the refinery, which will also have a petrochemical plant, will be done “later this year,” he said.

Africa’s largest crude producer is set to become a net exporter of refined products as soon as next year with a series of investments in new capacity including a 650,000-barrel-a-day plant being built by Aliko Dangote, Africa’s richest man. The Dangote refinery will achieve mechanical completion by the end of this year.

The Nigerian government last month approved state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.’s $1.5-billion plan to repair one of its four refineries in Port Harcourt, in the southern Rivers state. The Port Harcourt facility has two plants with the capacity to refine 210,000 barrels of oil a day.