An oil facility in Unity State | File photo

The national oil firm, Nile Petroleum Corporation has announced plans to begin production in Unity refinery by the first quarter of next year.

Unity oil refinery is a joint venture between Nile Petroleum and Russia’s Safinat. It is purportedly split at 30 -70 percent.

The Managing Director of NilePet says the operations will start in block 1, 2 and 4 of the state.

“Safinat and NilePet group will be starting operating the refinery in block 1, 2 and 4 in Unity state and we are expecting this refinery to operate within three to four-months from now,” Engineer Bol Ring told the press on Wednesday.

“The preparations started, today (Wednesday) the team arrived at the site and the other team will also reach to block 3, 7 after two days from now, and they will start the commissioning of one subsidiary.”

Eng. Bol Ring said the refinery will cost under 100 million US dollars.

However, Eng. Ring did not disclose how many barrels of crude oil the refinery will process on daily basis.

Since independence, the government of South Sudan declared its intention of constructing local refineries that will process more than 23,000 barrels per day.

The facilities are to be built in the oil-producing states of Unity and Upper Nile.

Economists say South Sudan imports about 40 million litres of fuel a month.

About 80 percent of the fuel imports is diesel and 20 percent is petrol.