New Refinery Plus 1,500 New Jobs Coming to Rivers State and Nigeria

Pic: BusinessDayOnline.com

By Russel Duke

National Standard Finance is delighted to announce its first major investment in Nigeria as part of its recently announced Economic Stimulus plan for Nigeria. 

Omega-Butler Refineries from the UK and National Standard Finance, LLC have teamed up to are build and finance a “turn-key” construction of modular mini oil refinery starting with capacity of 1,000,000 metric tons per year (20,000 barrels per day) in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

This will be the first module; further modules will be built once the first module becomes profitable, making 100,000 bpd in total.

Employing the most progressive technologies of deep crude oil processing, the Refinery is designed for production of environmentally friendly Motor Fuels (Petrol and Diesel, matching strict requirements of Euro-3&4 standards) and high quality Bitumen suitable for roads construction.

With the Yield of light oil products around 90%, this Mini Refinery outperforms the industry standards. It will deliver the initial requirement of the local community and reduce the current reliance on imported gasoline and motor fuel.

The rest will be sold in advance to existing customers of Omega-Refineries all over the world.

To reduce capital expenditures against costly traditional technologies, innovative Mini Refinery is engineered with three integrated Process Units:

•        DOR Unit (Deep Oil Refining) with patented Visbreaking-Termakat® Technology to achieve high Yield of light products;

•        CDT Unit (Catalytic Distillate Treatment) to produce high-octane Petrol and Diesel with low sulfur content;

•        DGF Unit (Desulfurization and Gas Fractioning) for gas treatment, sulfur production and environmental protection.

To expedite start-up of the Mini Refinery into operation, the Project Schedule is divided in two stages, which allows launching Deep Oil Refining (DOR) Unit and Desulfurization and Gas Fractioning (DGF) Unit, combined with supporting infrastructure of the Refinery, in extremely short time – 12 months. The second stage, including Catalytic Distillate Treatment (CDT Unit), will be finished overall in 24 months.

This approach will allow efficient allocation of investments and revenue stream from the first stage operation will facilitate to finance overall construction of the Refinery.

Rivers State Government will provide the 40 hectares of land and Omega-Butler, a UK based refinery and LNG company as 80% owners of the project are providing the project construction funding from National Standard Finance. Omega-Refineries will Build, Operate, Manage and provide the necessary expertise to keep the refinery profitable for decades to come.

Omega-Refineries will be responsible for selling the refined products into our existing market in Nigeria through local retailers. We expect 100% of the refined products be pre-sold in advance through a forward contracts.

Project Cost and Economic Benefits

Overall value of the Refinery upon completion will be in the range of U.S. $1 billion. Overall Budgetary Price of the Mini Refinery is U.S. $480 million. (Lump sum “turn-key” delivered, for two stages of construction, including cost of local amenities. This is 50% less than the cost of a second hand ready-made refinery of conventional refinery of similar capacity, even without the waste management capacity of the Port Harcourt Refinery). Full scope of Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Supervising and Project Management Services is included in Budgetary Price (within Battery Limits of the Refinery).

Break-even period for investments is expected to be five years. The Refinery will create an estimated 500 full-time jobs and 1,000 ancillary jobs resulting in a total of 1,500 new high quality jobs in Rivers State and Nigeria. This does not include local suppliers and sub-contractors.

Value:

Value of the completed refinery, including the crude oil allocation and refinery license is estimated at US$1.750 billion.

Conclusion:

National Standard Finance, together with Omega-Butler, with the help of the Rivers State Government will be an invaluable partner and contributor to this project by making sure the refinery is well managed and profitable, including selling all refined products into existing market through national retailers in Nigeria well in advance of production. Omega-Butler Refineries will also give priority of training and employment to local people from Port Harcourt and environs and to indigenous companies.

Global Sovereign & Infrastructure Investors

National Standard Finance, LLC is a leading multinational institutional alternative investment company and asset manager that specializes in sovereign (government) and infrastructure investing. National Standard is capitalized by a consortium of large North American financial institutions and some of the world’s leading global investment banks with combined financial assets exceeding US $2 Trillion which provide us with the financial backing to tackle the most complex and challenging financial transactions. National Standard maintains offices and staff across the global markets we serve.

A pioneer with best in class capabilities in global sovereign and infrastructure financial markets, National Standard is partnered with sovereign and sub-sovereign governments, helping design and fund infrastructure development programs. This includes leading government sponsored finance agencies and many of the world’s elite institutional investors, to create a progressive global capital syndicate dedicated to financing critical infrastructure and sovereign capital requirements around the world.

The sector focus is credit-worthy essential infrastructure assets, including but not limited to transportation, energy (Power, Oil & Gas), social programs including low income housing, healthcare and other mission critical assets sponsored by sovereign partners and executed by world-class private sector partners.

National Standard’s mission is to provide long term flexible private infrastructure capital [debt, leasing & equity] to select international markets, massively underserved by deleveraging international banks, formerly the backbone within these segments.

National Standard’s Africa operations (National Standard Finance Africa) are managed out of Johannesburg, South Africa and is managed by Michael Tichareva, Principal and Managing Director of National Standard Finance Africa and Kajiya Kantumoya, Director of Investments for Africa.

Culled from http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/