BUA Group Plc has selected France’s Axens for a multibillion-dollar 200,000 barrel per day refinery and petrochemicals plant in Nigeria, the French company said in a statement on Tuesday.
Axens, which makes systems to convert oil and biomass to cleaner fuels, said it would provide technology for the greenfield project designed to produce Euro-V fuels and polypropylene targeted at domestic and regional markets.
According to Reuters, Nigeria, Africa’s top oil exporter, aims to become a net exporter of petrol and other petroleum products over the next two years as refinery projects in the West African country come on stream, the industry regulator said on Tuesday.
“This large complex will help in reducing Nigeria’s dependence on imported fuels and petrochemicals,” said BUA, which also has interests in cement, food and mining.
The BUA project will be located in Nigeria’s oil-producing region of Akwa-Ibom state, the statement said.
A separate 650,000 bpd oil refinery, owned by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, is already under construction in Lagos.
BUA Cement recorded a 47.5 per cent increase in revenues to N175.52bn for the 2019 financial year as against N119.01bn posted in 2018.
The company, in a report to the Nigerian Stock Exchange, said its profit before tax increased by 69.1 per cent from N39.17bn in 2018 to N66.24bn in 2019.
Profit after tax was down 5.40 per cent from N64.07bn in 2018 to N60.61bn in 2019, which according to the company, was due to a tax credit of N26.76bn in 2018 from pioneer status incentive granted on Obu line-1 in 2019, reversing previous tax provision for the years.
BUA Cement Plc, in its current form, is a business combination between CCNN Plc (Sokoto Cement) and BUA Cement Manufacturing Company’s Obu Cement Company, which was completed in January 2020 and is currently listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. It has a market capitalisation of N1.18tn ($3.3bn), making it the third most capitalised company on the floor of the Exchange.