Nigeria’s downstream chaos could sink planned refinery sale

The country's four struggling refineries are to be privatised

Nigeria’s four troubled oil refineries are to be sold to the private sector, according to the petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke. She told a news agency that the process to privatise the four facilities, owned by the state’s Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), will start before the end of the first quarter of 2014, saying that the government does not want to be “in the business of running major infrastructure entities”. The refineries, which have been beset with operational problems for decades, are undergoing maintenance at present, with work on the two Port Harcourt facilities due to be completed by the end of 201