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| - Nigeria said Wednesday it had approved funding of $1.5 billion (1.2 billion euros) to repair one of its biggest oil refineries shut down two years ago. Despite being Africa's number one oil producer, Nigeria has relied on imports of petroleum products because of a lack of domestic refining capacity. As part of moves to overhaul the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the government has been working to improve capacity at the country's under-performing state-owned refineries. The four facilities in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna have a combined capacity to process 445,000 barrels per day (bpd). But they were shut down in 2019. The government has chosen Italian firm, Maire Tecnimont, to carry out the repair work at Port Harcourt, which has capacity of some 210,000 bpd, Petroleum Minister Timipre Sylva said. "We are happy to announce that the rehabilitation of productivity refinery will commence in three phases," Sylva told reporters. "The first phase is to be completed in 18 months, which will take the refinery to a production of 90 percent of its nameplate capacity," said Sylva adding that the second phase would be completed in 24 months and the third in 44 months. The minister said funding would come from various sources including "internally generated revenue" and a loan from the African Export-Import Bank known as Afreximbank. ea/lhd/spm
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