Waltersmith Petroman Oil Limited has said construction of its modular refinery is about 98% complete. The indigenous oil company is building the modular refinery in Ohaji/Egbema Local Government Area of Imo State.

The 30,000 barrels per day refinery project reached final investment decision in September 2018 with an 18-month delivery time from November 2018 to May 2020 for its first phase.

“It is about 98% complete. We will start pre-commissioning next week.” the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Waltersmith Petroman Oil Limited, Mr Chikezie Nwosu, told our correspondent on the sidelines of the Nigeria International Petroleum Summit.

According to him, the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board is a partner on the project. He said, “They are not only a partner, but they have helped us with respect to navigating the regulations, and helped us with respect to understanding the local content requirements.

“You cannot be in a partnership with the NCDMB, if transfer of skills is not one of the most important things that you have to satisfy. So, that partnership guides us along the path of the best local content initiatives for us to follow. The NCDMB has been a partner of choice in this venture.”

Asked if building of modular refineries was the way to go to increase the nation’s refining capacity, Nwosu said, “Absolutely, it is the way to go. We wouldn’t have committed to doing this if we hadn’t done a proper study of the environment where we operate, the needs of the people and the ability to build an economic model that works. That economic model is one of modular refineries; it allows you the redundancy that if you build several modules, if there is a problem with one of them, you can still deliver petroleum products.”

He added, “The problem with building one huge refinery is that if something goes wrong and enough redundancies have not been built in, then you cannot send out any refined products or your volumes are significantly impacted. But going through a modular approach means that you do build in those redundancies.”

SOURCE: https://punchng.com/waltersmiths-modular-refinery-98-complete-says-ceo/