Nigeria and neighbour Niger Republic plan to build an oil refinery as part of efforts to tackle smuggling of petrol across their shared borders.
Nigeria’s Minister of state for petroleum resources, Ibe Kachikwu, led a Nigerian government delegation to Niamey, the Nigerien capital, on Wednesday to discuss a firm agreement for the design and construction of the refinery to be strategically located at a border town between the two countries.
According to a statement by his ministry, Kachikwu said the move would be “in line with the commitment to collaboratively work across the region to ensure definitive solutions to [oil] sector challenges”.
He said the collaboration will be “expressed through the construction of a refinery in the border town between the Republic of Niger and Katsina State, Nigeria and a crude oil pipeline from the Republic of Niger to the new refinery”.
He held talks with the president of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, and the country’s energy minister Foumakoye Gado.
“Bilateral and technical agreements will be signed in coming days,” the statement revealed.
The capacity of the proposed refinery was not made known.
