Ogun Illegal Refinery Had 90,000-Litre Underground Tank – NMDPRA

The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) has disclosed that the illegal refinery recently uncovered at Ogere-Remo in Ikenne Local Government Area of Ogun State was operating on over three hectares of land, with an underground storage tank estimated to have a capacity of more than 90,000 litres. The State Coordinator of NMDPRA, Dr Atilola Akinyemi, disclosed this on Wednesday during a joint inspection of the facility by officials of the authority and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

Akinyemi described the facility as very crude and completely illegal, stressing that it had no permit from any regulatory authority and its operations were unknown to the relevant authorities. He said the facility contained locally fabricated tanks, separation silos, underground heating systems and hydrants used for cooling, and was designed to replicate the processes of a conventional refinery without complying with required regulatory, technical and safety standards.

He explained that the discovery was made possible through intelligence gathering and a whistleblower’s report, noting that routine regulatory monitoring alone might not have exposed an operation of such magnitude. The EFCC Zonal Director, Lagos Zonal Directorate 2, Bawa Usman Kaltungo, said the commission acted on information provided by a Nigerian whistleblower, adding that surveillance was conducted to authenticate the intelligence before the operation was launched.

Akinyemi, however, cautioned against describing the recovered products as diesel, also known as Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), saying laboratory tests were necessary to determine their actual composition. He warned that allowing the products into the market could expose vehicles and automobile engines to serious risks, adding that all products and materials recovered from the facility had been confiscated by the Federal Government pending laboratory analysis. NMDPRA officials subsequently sealed the facility.