From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The Federal Government and Bayelsa State have attracted a $3.6 billion, private sector-driven fertiliser and petrochemical plant to Brass.
The project is to build a petrochemical plant that will produce ammonia and convert it to 1.3 million tons of urea per annum. It will also produce methanol for industrial purposes and that will also yield about 1.7 million tonnes per annum.
Governor Seriake Dickson disclosed this to State House Correspondents when he led the Amanyanabo of Twon Brass, Alfred Diete-Spiff and a team of private investors on a courtesy visit to acting President Yemi Osinbajo in Aso Rock, Abuja.
He said while the state has a 10 percent equity in the project, the remaining 90 percent will be shared by investors from different countries and will create lots of jobs and transform the economy of the state.
“We came to discuss issues on the Brass Fertilise Project billed to take off in Bayelsa. That is a big ticket investment running into billions of dollars.
“The government team is here, the traditional ruler is here because the project is taking place in his domain. We are here to assure the federal government that Bayelsa is safe.
“We have worked hard in the last five years I have been governor to bring that about.
“And, we have assured them that the state is safe enough for investors to come in to execute this very important project for our country.”
Giving technical details of the deal, Director of Brass Petrochemical, which is driving the fertiliser plant project, Olufemi Adesanya, said the project will cost $3.6 billion and that the debt equity, which is 70 percent on the side of petrochemical, will be funded by the Chinese- EXIM Bank.
“Other investors in the project consists of DSV as the promoter, on the Nigerian side, it has Bayelsa State which is investing about 10 percent, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), which is also taking about 10 percent, MPC group, a German company, investing about 20 percent and there is GE, which is also looking at investing another 20 percent of the equity.
“Then we have Halothurpsle, a Danish company, the licensers of the technology for petrochemicals and normally what they do is when they take interest in a project they provide the license for the technology and also take equity, so they are planning to take equity of about 10 percent.
“There are also a number of companies we are talking with.”
Adesanya said the project will also include gas evacuation and processing facility “because the feed stock for the petrochemical plant is gas, we will also be transporting 300 million standard cubic feet of gas and we will process it to deliver lean gas to the fertiliser petrochemical plant.
“The gas will come from five different fields and Shell will drill the wells and connect to manifolds, we will then go to that manifold with our pipelines and evacuate the wet gas, to the project site where we will have the gas processing plant. “This will be a very large processing plant because 300 million is quiet a lot.”
The governor thanked the federal government for its new approach to pursuing integrated development in the country based on partnership and collaboration evidenced by the fertiliser plant.
He also said the state was appreciative of the acting president’s dialogue which has led to the peace, stability, security and development of the region.
He said part of the dialogue is to engage with the oil producing companies to see how they can begin to have respectable presence in the state. He also thanked the Federal Government for the policy of promoting modular refineries in the Niger Delta region.