The Department of Petroleum Resources has listed 28 investors, including BUA Refinery & Petrochemicals Limited, with active refining licences in the country.
This comes after reports emerged that 32 refinery project licences issued to private investors in the country had become invalid in the past three years as they were missing on the updated list of valid licences as of March 2021 which was obtained from the DPR on Monday.
The DPR, in a new list as of April 2021 published on its website on Tuesday, said 28 licences were active while 29 were inactive.
Refineries with active Licence to Establish are BUA Refinery & Petrochemicals, Ogini Refinery Limited, Excel Exploration & Production, Lowrie Refinery Limited, NPDC/ND WESTERN OML 34 JV, Ogini Refinery, Eghudu Refinery and Kingdom Global Trading Petroleum & Gas Nig.
The 20 refineries with active Approval to Construct/Relocate include Dangote Oil Refinery Company, OPAC Refineries, Waltersmith Refining & Petrochemical Company, Niger Delta Petroleum Resources, Edo Petrochemical Refinery, Etopo Energy Plc, Resource Petroleum & Petrochemicals International Incorporated, Duport Midstream and Conodit Refinery Nigeria.
Others are Lowrie Refinery, Excel Refinery, Gasoline Associates International, Frao Oil Nigeria, Alexis Refinery, Allegiance Energy and Power, Atlantic International Refineries and Petrochemical, Amakpe International Refinery Inc, Gazingstock Petroleum Company, Azikel Petroleum, and Clairgold Oil & Gas Engineering.
Meanwhile, the DPR said on Tuesday that companies whose refinery project licences had become inactive could reapply for revalidation.
The agency, in a statement by its Head of Public Affairs, Mr Paul Osu, said, “We wish to clarify that DPR did not revoke any refinery licence. Refinery licence, like our other regulatory instruments, have validity periods for investors to attain certain milestones.
“This implies that after the validity period for the particular milestone, the licence becomes inactive until the company reapplies for revalidation to migrate to another milestone. This does not in any way translate to revocation of licence of the company.”
