Japan's top oil refiner Nippon Oil and two oil and gas developers Inpex Holdings (Inpex) and Japan Petroleum Exploration Co Ltd (Japex) denied a report that they were in talks to build an oil refinery in Libya.

The Nikkei business daily said a consortium of five Japanese firms, also including JGC Corp and Nippon Yusen KK, were in discussions with an eye towards building a 200,000 barrels per day facility in a 400 billion yen ($3.6 billion)-500 billion yen ($4.5 billion) project.

Inpex and Japex called the Nikkei report "groundless." A Nippon Oil spokesman also denied the report.Reuters