The Department of Petroleum Resources has announced that 28 investors, including BUA Refinery & Petrochemicals Limited, have active refining licences.

The agency disclosed this in a statement published on its website on Tuesday.

The regulatory body added that 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.

DPR Refutes claim of revoking licences

The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) through its Head, Public Affairs , Mr Paul Osu, refuted a report that the regulatory agency for the oil and gas industry revoked the licences issued for the establishment of 32 refinery projects in the country.

The report had listed BUA Refinery & Petrochemicals (Akwa Ibom); Southfield Petrochemical & Refinery Ltd (Edo); Starex Petroleum Refinery (Onne Oil & Gas Free Trade Zone); RG Shinjin Petrochemicals (Delta); Don Mac (Edo), and Platinum Hydrocarbon Resources (Delta) as some of the facilities affected by the development.

Some others affected, according to the report, were All Grace Energy (Rivers); Green Energy International (Rivers); Fresh Energy Limited (Bayelsa); Chyzob Oil & Gas (Abia); Aiteo Energy Resources Limited (Delta); Associated Worldwide Company (Akwa Ibom); and Amakpe International Refinery (Akwa Ibom).

But in a statement, Osu said, “Our attention has been drawn to a report in some publications stating that DPR has revoked 32 refinery licences issued to private companies in Nigeria. We wish to clarify that DPR did not revoke any refinery licence. Refinery licences 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.”

According to the DPR, this does not in any way translate to the revocation of the licence of the company.

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The oil and gas industry regulator stated that it will continue to provide support to investors in the sector in Nigeria using its regulatory instruments, including licences, permits and approvals to stimulate the economy and align with government’s job creation initiatives.