Oando reiterates plan to partner Agip to rehabilitate Port Harcourt refinery

15 May 2017
Financial Nigeria

Summary

Oando said negotiations to finalize the deal are ongoing, and a final agreement is expected to be reached by the end of July 2017.

Wale Tinubu, Group CEO, Oando Plc

Oando, a leading Nigerian oil and gas company, has reiterated that it plans to partner with the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) and its Italian parent company, Eni, to rehabilitate the Port Harcourt refinery.

In a statement published in major newspapers on Monday, Oando said that contrary to recent media reports, negotiations to finalize the deal are ongoing, and a final agreement is expected to be reached by the end of July 2017.

“We wish to explicitly state that Oando shares the vision of the Nigerian government to become a petroleum product self-sufficient country in the short to medium term and ultimately be a net exporter of such products,” the company said. “Accordingly, pursuant to the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) reached by the Federal Government and NAOC/Eni, Oando will partner with NAOC/Eni in the proposed rehabilitation of the Port Harcourt Refinery (PHRC). This will be based on a repair, operate and maintain (ROM) agreement which will see PHRC’s capacity grow from its current 30% to 100%, its name plate capacity of 210,000 barrels per stream day (bspd)”

In January of this year, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and Chairman of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, signed an MOU with Eni in Rome for the development of Nigeria’s power and energy sectors.

Under the agreement, Eni said its subsidiaries – Nigerian Agip Oil Company and Nigerian Agip Exploration – agreed to intensify their upstream oil and gas operations with an increased focus on development and exploration activities in the onshore, offshore, and Ultra Deep Water operated areas. The Rome-based oil giant also said that the parties agreed to cooperate towards the rehabilitation and enhancement of the PHRC.

After meeting with Eni executives last week in Abuja, Kachikwu said the Italian oil giant, through its Agip subsidiary, agreed to build a new refinery of 150,000 bpd in Port Harcourt or Brass. The minister also said Eni agreed to cooperate in the repairs of PHRC.

“In line with the concerted efforts of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the NNPC to aggressively drive private sector-led refineries rehabilitation and expansion programmes, Oando as local partners to NAOC/Eni will support the rehabilitation of PHRC on activities of terminalling, logistics, structuring, and funding,” Oando stated. “It is imperative that information released about a publicly quoted company such as Oando is thoroughly verified before it is put in the public domain. The company’s securities are traded across two exchanges (NSE and JSE).”

Oando said members of the press should direct enquiries about the NAOC/Eni partnership to its Corporate Communications department in order “to prevent further misinformation and confusion among shareholders, investors, employees, and the oil and gas sector at large.”


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