Chinenye Anuforo
Construction work has finally commenced on Tomaro Industrial Park, which was pronounced a Free Trade Zone (FTZ) by the Federal Government in line with its effort to industrialise the nation’s economy through building of industrial clusters across the country.
During the site tour with journalists yesterday in Lagos, the Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Integrated Oil and Gas/Genesis Shipping Worldwide, Captain Emmanuel Ihenacho, explained that the project, expected to gulp $450 million, comprises Tomaro tank farm, shipyard, oil rig fabrication plant and modular refinery.
The tank farm project, he said, consists of 30 tank bases with storage capacity of 500 million litres of fuel. He added that given the capacity, NNPC would be at liberty to draw fuel for 15 days from the facility when there are ups and down in fuel supply in Nigeria.
He said, “it is going to be a strategic storage and product supply tank farm. Most tank farms rely on an arrangement where ships supply them and trucks come to pick products from the farms but because we are located on the Island as well as the function, the farm is designed to be supplied by ships and discharged also by ships. This means that smaller vessels would be used to take the products from Tomaro tank farms to the farms located at the ports.”
Ihenacho said with the capacity in Tomaro, there is no reason the park would not be the centre for tank farm operation because it would not only supply Apapa and Tin-Can but also facilities in Port Harcourt, Warri and even some of the countries in West African region like Ghana, Lome. “That is why this facility is an industrial park and an FTZ.”