Waltersmith Petroman Oil Ltd., a Nigerian independent producer, will open a 5,000-barrel a day capacity modular refinery next month.
The company, Nigeria’s first producer from marginal fields, plans to increase output to 30,000 barrels a day in two years, Chief Executive Officer Chikezie Nwosu said this week at a webinar.
“We expect that by September we should be ready to test-run the refinery, now at 98% completion,” he said. “We’re going to grow its capacity by an additional 25,000 barrels a day to make it 30,000 barrels.”
The phase 1 of the project upon delivery of the 5,000 BPD Modular capacity refinery will process about 6,000 boepd currently produced by the upstream business of Waltersmith to the readily available market in the south-eastern part of Nigeria.
It is expected to contribute about 271 million litres of refined products including Diesel, Naptha, HFO and Kerosene annually to the domestic market and create both direct and indirect jobs particularly within the host communities.
The phase 2 is the delivery of 25,000 BPD crude and condensate refinery; an upgrade on the 5,000bpd modular refinery. The project is still at an early stage of development but is designed to produce the following products: gasoline, diesel, LPG, kerosene and aviation fuel.
Waltersmith is the Operator of Ibigwe marginal field OML 16 located in Ohaji/Egbema Local Government Area of Imo-State.