Chineme Okafor , tracks the progress of work at Waltersmith’s first phase refinery project and reports that all things being equal Nigeria could get its first structured modular refinery in place and working next month In 1965, Nigeria built its first refinery at Alesa Eleme in Port Harcourt; the plant had an initial production capacity of 38,000 barrels a day (bd) which was later expanded to 60,000bd. With this, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which ran it tried to meet the country’s domestic demand for refined petroleum products, however, it could not and had to set up another in Warri in 1979 with a 100,000bd production capacity. Two more – the Kaduna refinery and a second in Eleme, were subsequently built by the NNPC within the 1980s to bring Nigeria’s oil refining capacity to 445,000bd which adequately met her domestic demands for refined products at the time, and […]