Obaseki increases crude oil supply to Edo modular refinery to 200,000 barrels

Oredola Adeola

Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State has ordered more crude oil from the Oza Oil Field, as feedstock to the Edo Refinery and Petrochemicals Company Limited (ERPC), thereby increasing the volume produced in the facility from 150,000 barrels to 200,000 barrels.

This was confirmed in a statement by Governor Obaseki and obtained by EnergyDay on Monday.

He disclosed that the crude oil deal was in line with the drive to transform Edo State into a major investment and industrial haven in the country.

EnergyDay gathered that the Edo Modular refinery is a 6,000bpd capacity plant, located in Ologbo, Ikpoba, Okha Local Government Area of Edo state, in March 2023, received 150,000 barrels of crude oil from the Oza field.

The modular refinery is managed and owned by the Edo State Government. It commenced production in January 2023, with its first supply of 10,000 barrels of crude feedstock from the same field.

The refinery project is executed in two trains- 1,000bpd and 5,000 bpd- producing refined petroleum products including diesel, naphtha, and low-pour fuel oil (LPFO).

According to the Edo state government, the facility is expected to produce 500,000 litres of diesel, 300,000 litres of naphtha, and 200,000 litres of fuel oil.

Governor Obaseki said, “The Edo Refinery was established with the injection of N700 million naira as redeemable preference shares (investment) from our government through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a Chinese Consortium led by Peiyang Chemical and Equipment Company of China (PCC) and its Nigerian partners, Africa Infrastructure Partners Limited (AIPL).

“The 6000 barrels per day refinery has been completed and has since commenced operation with its main output being Diesel, Naphtha, and LPFO,” the Edo State Governor noted.

EnergyDay further gathered that Decklar and Millennium are the operators in charge of the Oza Field, an onshore conventional oil field, on dry terrain, in the northwestern part of Oil Mining Lease (OML) 11, approximately 30 kilometres southwest of Port Harcourt which is part of the Abia State in Nigeria.
The field was formerly operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Ltd. (“Shell”), the local subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc.

The 20 square kilometres concession was carved out of OML 11 in 2003 as part of the Government’s Marginal Field Development Program and was awarded to Millenium Oil and Gas Company Limited (“Millenium”) having won the bid during the 2003 Marginal Fields Licensing Round.

Decklar Resources is developing the field through a Risk Service Agreement (RSA) with Millenium.

The Oza Field is surrounded by producing fields operated by Shell, including Isirmi, Obeakpu, Afam, Obigbo and Umuosi.