THE management of Eko Petrochemical Refinery Ltd on Tuesday lauded Godwin Emefiele, the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), for his good intention to assist modular refiners.

Mr Emmanuel lheanacho, the Chairman of the company, gave the commendation in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.

Emefile, had on Jan. 20 during his visit to Dangote refinery, said that bank was ready to support modular refiners in the country in naira and in dollar they needed to import equipment.

NAN reports that the proposed Eko Petrol Chemical Refinery Company’s 20,000 barrel per day production capacity modular refinery is located at Tomaro Island Port in Amuwo Odofin Local Government Area of Lagos worth 250 million dollars (about N90 billion).

Iheanacho described this intention as a welcome development and expressed his company’s readiness to apply for the foreign exchange facility.

The chairman said: “whatever help we can get from anywhere to ease the burden of project implementation, we will gladly reach for it.

“We shall most certainly be reaching out to the CBN governor with detailed information of our project together with the report of progress achieved so far, to see where and how the bank can assist us to realise our plan objectives.

“Our next plan of development action post receipt of the authority to construct and the nature of the assistance which we expect to receive from the CBN and other national financing and development institutions are matters which would fully engage our management’s attention in the coming few weeks and months.

“In the scheme of our current national priorities, the requirement to develop indigenous refining capacity on Nigerian soil is very high indeed.

“Local refining capacity would allow us realise our ambitions with respect to import substitution potential leading to great savings in scarce forex requirements.

“Local refiners would facilitate the goals of value addition to our oil trade as well as lead to lower costs of consumed refined products in the country.

“We intend to have recourse to traditional and special funding sources in our search for investment funds for our refinery development project.

“ What is important is for us to articulate credible development proposals, based on clear-cut, tangible tested economic and market criteria, showing the profitability, job creation, technology transfer and other value, adding potentials which would derive from the success of our unique refinery development and investment initiative,’’ Iheanacho said.

NAN reports that Emefiele urged other private refinery licensees to develop the capacity to build more refineries.

“I have not seen any licensee approach the bank for credit to build refinery.

“Remember, such licensee will approach his bank which will in turn assess his capacity to build such refinery and such request will be forwarded to the CBN for approval.

“If they have the capacity, we will support them through their banks.’’ (NAN)

– Feb. 5, 2019 @ 13:35 GMT |