The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority on Wednesday disclosed that an illegal refinery recently uncovered in Ogere Remo, Ikenne Local Government Area of Ogun State, occupied more than three hectares of land and had an underground storage tank with an estimated capacity exceeding 90,000 litres.
The NMDPRA State Coordinator, Dr Atilola Akinyemi, revealed this during a joint inspection of the facility on Wednesday by officials of the regulatory authority and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.
Akinyemi said, “We received information about this operation, and we realised that it was important for us to be here personally. This kind of discovery cannot be made through ordinary monitoring alone; it requires intelligence gathering. As the Zonal Director of the EFCC has explained, intelligence was instrumental in uncovering this operation. We need more of such efforts.”
“The facility you see here is very crude and completely illegal. This is not a refinery by any standard. I want you to understand that this facility does not have a permit from any regulatory authority, and its operations are unknown to the relevant authorities.
“This can be likened to the illegal refining activities that were prevalent in the Niger Delta during the 1990s and early 2000s. One question that comes to mind is: where do they source their feedstock?”
He said the facility had underground storage tanks with a combined estimated capacity of more than 90,000 litres, alongside locally fabricated tanks, separation silos, underground heating systems and cooling hydrants.
Akinyemi noted that the operators appeared to possess technical expertise, having designed the facility to resemble a standard refinery while circumventing established regulatory requirements.
He, however, cautioned against identifying the recovered products as diesel, also known as Automotive Gas Oil, noting that laboratory analysis was required to establish their actual composition.
The NMDPRA coordinator warned that releasing the products into the market could pose serious risks to vehicles and automobile engines.
He said the products and materials recovered from the facility had been confiscated and placed in the custody of the Federal Government pending laboratory analysis and verification.
Akinyemi said the authority would not tolerate illegal refining activities in Ogun State, adding that it would sustain its collaboration with law enforcement agencies to identify and dismantle similar facilities.
He noted, “We can identify the various components of the operation, including the areas where they receive their feedstock. The underground storage facility behind the site is estimated to have a capacity of more than 90,000 litres.
“We have also seen how they carry out the heating and processing of the materials using underground heating systems, as well as the water hydrants installed for cooling.
“It is clear that the people behind this operation are not ordinary individuals. They appear to be technically skilled people who have deliberately designed this facility to circumvent government regulations and operate outside the established regulatory framework.
“We have seen locally fabricated storage tanks, silos for separation, and other equipment. Everything about the setup suggests that they attempted to replicate the operations of a standard refinery but failed to meet the required standards.”
