Nigeria and Spain have expressed their readiness to strengthen their bilateral trade relationship in every spectrum of the oil and gas industry for the benefit of the two countries.

A Press Release by Garba Muhammad, the Group General-Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, said that the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Maikanti Baru stated this while receiving the Spanish Ambassador to Nigeria, Alfonso Barnuevo at the NNPC headquarters in Abuja.

The GMD revealed that the NNPC, as an integrated oil and gas company, is currently undergoing transformation which includes increasing the corporations refining capacity.

He added that the Corporation would work closely with the Spanish National oil company, REPSOL, to improve the technical capacities of Nigerian refineries.

“As you know, we have challenges with our refineries and with REPSOL refining about 900,000 barrels of crude oil per day, we can collaborate on that going forward,” Baru noted.

He added that “While we are fixing our refineries, we also have the opportunity to bring in more petroleum products into the country to meet our domestic needs.”

Baru stated that the NNPC was also working on the Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline Project and would rely on the technical support of some Spanish companies towards addressing the challenges of gas supply.

The Spanish Ambassador said that Nigeria and Spain have an established cordial relationship dating back to over three decades.

“This visit is to further strengthen these good ties between our nations and in particular, between the NNPC and REPSOL,” Barnuevo said.

According to him, Spain is Nigeria’s second best client in the area of oil and gas as the country currently buys about 4.6 billion Euros worth of oil and gas from Nigeria.

He explained that in the first quarter of 2015, Spain represents nine percent of the total export from Nigeria, “Therefore NNPC and REPSOL will benefit tremendously from sustaining this collaboration,” the ambassador concluded.