Nigerian tycoon Eruani Azibapu's $1 billion Niger Delta refinery is nearing completion

Eruani Azibapu's Azikel Refinery in Yenagoa has reached its finishing stage, putting Bayelsa State within sight of hosting the first private refinery in the Niger Delta capable of producing petrol and aviation fuel.

The plant will run at 25,000 barrels a day and represents an investment of about $1 billion, the president of Azikel Group said during a tour of the complex by the Nigerian Society of Engineers this month.

Around 700 engineers and other personnel are working on the completion phase, most of them young Bayelsans and Nigerian engineers alongside expatriate specialists. Azikel expects to employ more than 3,000 people once the refinery is running, and says the project has already generated over 80,000 indirect jobs.

Mac Jokori, chairman of the engineering society's Bayelsa branch, said the facility complied with the highest engineering standards and described it as a significant milestone for Nigerian refining. The plant is designed to take both condensate and crude oil as feedstock.

"As engineers, we recognise that a refinery of this scale is more than a commercial venture," Jokori said. "It is an engine of industrialisation, a catalyst for local capacity building, and a pathway to sustainable development for our youths."

He pledged the society's support through technical collaboration, internships, mentorship, research partnerships and capacity building, and said the refinery would deepen cooperation between industry, government and professional bodies on safety, environmental standards and local content.

A full slate rather than a topping plant

Eruani said the extended construction timeline reflected deliberate engineering choices rather than difficulty.

Azikel is a full-slate hydro-skimming refinery, capable of turning crude or condensate into premium motor spirit, diesel, aviation fuel, kerosene and liquefied petroleum gas at Euro V grade. Topping plants, the simpler facilities that most Nigerian modular refinery licences have produced, make mainly diesel.

"The cracking of crude oil or condensate to produce petrol and aviation fuel is a major feat in the refinery business, which can only be achieved by hydro-skimming refineries and other refineries equipped with Fluid Catalytic Cracking units," Eruani said.

He described Azikel as Nigeria's second largest full-slate refinery and the only plant in Africa designed to process condensate into a complete product range covering petrol, dual purpose kerosene, automotive gas oil and heavy fuel oil. The company plans a later expansion to 125,000 barrels a day.

Eruani said the project had been conceived to turn Bayelsa into an industrial hub while creating employment across the Niger Delta.

How the project grew

The refinery Azikel is finishing is considerably larger than the one it was licensed to build.

Regulators approved the project in 2015, in the first months of Muhammadu Buhari's presidency. When Azikel Petroleum signed a $259 million debt funding agreement with the African Export-Import Bank in November 2023, both parties described the plant as a 12,000 barrel-a-day hydro-skimming refinery.

Eruani signed that agreement with Helen Brume, Afreximbank's director of project and asset-based finance, at a ceremony attended by Presidents Abdel Fattah El-Sisi of Egypt, Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe and Lazarus Chakwera of Malawi, along with former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, former vice-president Namadi Sambo and Afreximbank president Benedict Oramah.

"The Azikel Refinery licensed by former President Muhammadu Buhari in 2015 has now gone through several enhanced value engineering and redesign to a 25,000 barrels per day capacity," Eruani said. "It is now a $1 billion investment."

Capacity has therefore roughly doubled since the financing was arranged, and the stated investment has grown several times over. Azikel Petroleum contracted the American oil services group McDermott for feasibility work and construction on the plant.

From medicine to dredging to refining

Eruani came to refining by an unusual route.

Born in 1973 in what was then Rivers State, he trained as a doctor and practised at Westend Clinic and Ashford & Patrick Hospital before joining the Bayelsa State civil service as a medical officer. He moved into industrial medicine at Nigerian Agip Oil Company, the ENI subsidiary in Port Harcourt, and served as chief physician to Melford Okilo, the first civilian governor of old Rivers State. He later became special adviser on HIV/AIDS and community health, and served as Bayelsa's commissioner for health.

He learned trading from his father, Chief Allwell Eruani, and later took business courses at London Business School and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Azikel Group was founded in 2008 and made its money in sand. Azikel Dredging became the biggest name in the business before it owned a single dredger, and nearly lost the machine it had commissioned from the American manufacturer DSC when Eruani ran a few hundred thousand dollars short on the purchase, having already borrowed heavily from a bank. The contract that closed the gap came from Setraco Group, which had won the federal East-West road job and needed a million cubic metres of sand delivered on schedule.

The group had revenues above $80 million and more than 700 employees by 2018 across dredging, aviation, agriculture and energy. It now runs as Azikel Dredging, Azikel Air, Azikel Power and Azikel Petroleum, headquartered in Bayelsa with an office in Asokoro, Abuja.

Eruani expanded through the years Goodluck Jonathan served as vice-president and then president. Both men come from the Ogbia area of Bayelsa State.

Azikel has not announced a start-up date for the completed plant.