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President Joao Lourenco has made increased hydrocarbon refining capacity a priority

Angola has inaugurated an extension unit on the Luanda refinery, which quadruples the production of petroleum products at the plant.

It Is the first of three ongoing refinery projects in the country.

\Italian major ENI led the revamp for Sonangol, the Angolan state hydrocarbon company.]{_:(*H

The project bumps up gasoline output from 100,000tons to 450,000 tons per year.

“The Combined Cycle has been rehabilitated so as to be fed by hydrogen produced by the new Platforming unit”, ENI says in a statement. “Power is now produced recycling gas with a net reduction of pollutant emissions”.

ENI and Sonangol signed a Memorandum of Understanding to give continuity to the support to expansion and modernization activities the refinery of Luanda.

“The main highlight is increasing the production capacity of refined petroleum products, such as diesel and gasoline. The situation in the country, which has significant crude oil production but until recently had little capacity to transform it, was somewhat incomprehensible,” Angolan President Joao Lourenco, said at the inauguration.

Angola produces only about 20% of the refined products it needs, despite being one of Africa’s top two crude oil producers.

President Joao Lourenco has made increased hydrocarbon refining capacity a priority. Construction of the 60,000BPSD refinery at Cabinda is ongoing, under a joint venture agreement with Sonangol, according to a report in the April 2022 edition of the Africa Oil+Gas Report.  “Phase 1 of that project is expected to include a 30,000BPSD CDU with a desalter, kerosene treatment and ancillary infrastructures including a conventional buoy mooring system, pipelines and storage facility for over 1.2Million barrels. It is due to be commissioned before the end of 2022. Phase 2 and 3 will upgrade the plant to a full conversion refinery with additional 30,000BPSD capacity, a new catalytic reformer, hydrotreater and catalytic cracking unit”, the report notes.

Also ongoing is the construction of the 100,000BPSD grassroots Soyo refinery in Zaire Province. The contract was won by the US company Quanten Consortium, in March 2021, under a Design, Build, Own, and Operate a tank farm and marine terminal for feedstock (including crude oil) delivered to and products exported from the refinery

Meanwhile, ENI said of the upgrade Luanda refinery: “The modernization and expansion project is based on a commitment taken by Eni with the Government of Angola, and leverages ENI’s know-how and expertise and its long cooperation with Sonangol. The project has had a positive impact in job generation and provided training opportunities for over 100 employees of Sonangol who benefitted from training by ENI in Milan, Sannazzaro, Livorno, Taranto and Luanda”.

By Babajide Soyode

Nigeria needs to liberate its currency, The Naira, from its shackle to the global price of Crude Oil.

The country would also benefit, enormously, from promotion of Fuel Taxation as an instrument of fiscal revenue generation.

These are two of the core messages of this paper.

I will restate them, add the others and elucidate.

• Liberating the Naira from its shackle to the global price of Crude Oil since the enunciation and adoption of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in late 1980’s by immediate, unceremonious cessation of Fuel Subsidy totally.
• Promoting Petroleum Fuel Taxation as the most efficacious, equitable, and accountable manner of fiscal revenue generation which is directly related to national economic performance and to the direct choice of the fuel consumer. If you do not fuel, you do not pay the tax. This is why there is no agitation over fuel price and fuel taxation in all developed countries, most developing countries where fuel is taxed, and all other non-oil producing countries, which have fuel taxation regime. It is a highly discretionary expenditure.
• Creation of hundreds of thousands of different kinds of jobs and trading activities through the upgrade of Fuel Production and Distribution Assets, namely the NNPC Refineries, the over 5,000 kilometers of products pipelines, 21 depots and pump stations, during the construction period.
• Minimal direct capital expenditure by Government, if any.

1. Financial Implications

This proposal is designed conceptually to be fiscally neutral, in reality, if all the policy measures advocated are adopted, and to result in very substantial and stable new source of revenue for Government.

• Only a declaration of complete cessation of subsidy on Petroleum Fuel in any form, either through control of crude oil pricing to any domestic refiner, or ‘‘under recovery’’ by any refinery. In simple and clear language, crude oil will commence, from the date of the declaration, to be charged to all domestic refiners at the competitive equivalent international prices at the domestic terminal of lading, or at the domestic production flow station or quality control centre. In this way, Government will not suffer any revenue loss from domestic consumption compared with export. Currency of pricing is different matter, which shall be handled administratively.

Appropriate Road Network from Dangote Refinery to Main Expressways Dangote Refinery products should reach the widest market inside Nigeria with the lowest cost of distribution. This is possible only if the products transit through existing Pipelines and Depot Network. Road transit is the next lower cost option, but the Host State for the Refinery is yet to honour her obligation to construct appropriate road network from the Refinery to the main expressways into the hinterland. Delivery by sea is most expensive in any direction as it involves the products first going to sea, transshipment in small tankers, and landing charges at seaports. Consequently, a collaboration between Dangote and NNPC Ltd to effect interconnection between Dangote Refinery and Mosimi is in the nation’s strategic interest.

As for imported products, products pricing will reflect full landing costs plus full internal distribution costs and profit, all to be controlled or dictated by market competition.

• The implication, and desired effect of this, is that only the prices of fuel products will change or vary with variation in global crude oil prices for whatever reasons, but the value of the Naira will remain stable. This stability of the Nigerian currency is vital and critical for sustenance of stable economic development and social harmony.
• This was the premise of the paper submitted to Government in 1992, conceived along the Marshal Plan of the United States after World War II to finance European economic recovery and redevelopment, to create a Nigerian Petroleum Patrimony Fund from the difference between the $2.00 per barrel price fixed by SAP for the 250,000 barrels per day of crude oil earmarked for domestic consumption, and the actual average market price of $18 per barrel in 1992/93. This would have resulted in additional revenue of $16 per barrel, and a fund accumulation rate of $4Million daily or $1.469Billion annually. The fund was to be domiciled as a Special Account ONLY at the CBN, and to be dispensed on matching grant basis to States for development of transportation infrastructures, and other critical infrastructures as might be deemed necessary. In the end, the Abacha Administration created the Petroleum Trust Fund from partial removal of subsidy, and the rest is history. This history must not be repeated in this instance!
• Beside the primary and most critical objective of decoupling the Naira from the global price of crude oil, and assuring that its value inheres from the aggregate health and vibrancy of the overall economy, removal of subsidy will facilitate private equity participation in the proposed Fuel Production and Distribution Assets upgrade, since NNPC Ltd alone cannot, and, indeed, should not be allowed to execute the works alone. In order words, the Downstream Industry should be completely deregulated and open.
• Removal of subsidy will also enable NNPC Ltd to emerge from the permanent under-recovery operating status, and generate enough revenue to not only sustain operation but also to invest in the upgrade of the Assets along with private equity.
• The proposed fund from ₦10 per litre fuel tax is open to both NNPC Ltd and private investors for bridging or matching loan to finance the upgrade works. The fund shall be operated by commercial banks under the strict supervision of the Central Bank of Nigeria.
• Government may consider obtaining advance loan from CBN to fund practical human welfare development projects in critical major urban centres like Lagos, Abuja, Kano, Ibadan, Jos, Port Harcourt, Onitsha, Benin City, where potential public blowback to subsidy removal may be fierce. Such projects include completion of ongoing Mass Transit Systems, Procurement of Buses from Local Assembly Plants for donation to these Urban Centres to augment existing mass transit. The loan will be repaid from subsequent revenue accruals from subsidy removal. It is also presumed that well-conceived, fact-based public awareness campaign programmes will be developed and implemented well ahead of the declaration of cessation of subsidy regime, by the National Orientation Agency.

2. Fuel Tax

This is not new in most parts of the world. In Nigeria, it has become inevitable in view of our expensive political governance structure, our very narrow industrial range of economic production, our low economic productivity, and, above all our surging population. We are a very poor oil producing nation. It is only fair and equitable therefore that our taxation should, as much as equitably justifiable, be consumption based. Those who consume petroleum fuels should as much as possible pay for the construction and maintenance of the infrastructure, such as roads, which their vehicles ply.

Fuel tax has also become imperative to efficaciously control smuggling of products across our porous borders to neighboring countries where prices are much higher, even when subsidy is removed. Border closure is not efficient, and cannot be sustained indefinitely. Economic damage to the country, not to mention diplomatic stigmatization, will be unacceptable.

Finally, fuel taxation may discourage the myriad of unaccountable taxes being levied willy nilly by all levels of government all over the country.

3. Optimization of Strategic Impact of Dangote Refinery on Nigeria’s Economy.

Dangote Refinery products should reach the widest market inside Nigeria with the lowest cost of distribution. This is possible only if the products transit through existing Pipelines and Depot Network, at least in the Southwestern, Mid-Western and North Central regions. Road transit is the next lower cost option, but the Host State for the Refinery is yet to honour her obligation to construct appropriate road network from the Refinery to the main expressways into the hinterland.

Delivery by sea is most expensive in any direction as it involves the products first going to sea, transshipment in small tankers, and landing charges at seaports.

Consequently, a collaboration between Dangote and NNPC Ltd to effect interconnection between Dangote Refinery and Mosimi is in the nation’s strategic interest.

4. Implementation Schedule

The present assets were constructed substantially between 1975 and 1980, while Colonel Muhammadu Buhari was Federal Commissioner for Petroleum Resources (1975 – 1979) for most of that period. This author had the honour and pleasure of driving hm and the then Head of State, General Olusegun Obasanjo, round Warri Refinery when it was being commissioned on 26^th September, 1978.

I was the coordinator of the Refinery Project Implementation, and I was firsthand witness to the exemplary leadership Col. Buhari gave to the Oil Industry in general, and to NNPC Downstream Development Projects specifically during the period.

• Clearly, therefore, there is sufficient time still to reenact the same feat in the remaining life of this Administration since only upgrade works will be involved. Significantly, all sites have been acquired, surveyed, cleared, and built. All rights-of-way have been acquired. All geotechnical surveys and soil tests have been performed. Most foundations and underground works have been constructed, and water treatment plants constructed, requiring only modifications and extensions. Most storage facilities have been constructed, requiring only additions. Most plant equipment will be reused, requiring mainly internal modifications, and some changes, where necessary. Instrumentation networks will be completely new, while power plants will be substantially modified. Most, if not all pipelines will be new, but depots will have new storage tankage additions. All the works can be completed in 24 – 36 months.
• Connection between Dangote Refinery and Mosimi Depot can be completed within 24 months.
• Determination of private sector interests in equity participation can be completed in 3 – 6 months.

5.  Approval

Approval of Mr. President is of course the starting point. It is widely believed that he is firmly opposed to Subsidy Removal, without which no meaningful progress towards realization of the strategic objectives conceptualized in this memorandum is possible.

Perhaps Mr. President has obtained his Second Mandate for this very purpose! A subsidy policy which in over 33 years of its existence has not only not improved the lot of the poor, but, on the contrary, has only democratized and deepened poverty, needs to go. Subsidy regime has entrenched corruption in the polity. It has all but destroyed the Fuel Production and Distribution Assets whose acquisition the President supervised more than 40 years ago.

Indonesia and Egypt removed subsidy and are better off for it. Our less endowed neighbours in the Sub-Region do not enjoy subsidy, yet they are thriving at their own pace.

6. Prayer

The Presidential Economic Advisory Council is hereby beseeched to study the foregoing memorandum in the knowledge that

• the technical proposals are based on over 45 years of operating and practicing experience in engineering design, project management, construction supervision, plant management, strategic planning, and on-going technical consultancy for the last 7 years for the largest refinery project in Africa, and the largest single train in the world;
• that the economic concepts are based on experience of failed policies which are results of selective implementation of policy recommendations;
• that time may be running out before potential explosive manifestation of youth unemployment and disillusionment;
• that Nigeria can still internally finance her economic development programs if they are well conceived and executed with the discipline of the private sector, and propose to Mr. President that the time has come to finally realize the full benefits of the Structural Adjustment Programme, launched 33 years, that has been shackled by the tying of the Naira to the vagaries of the Global Crude Oil Market through Fuel subsidy. The intent then was to promote acceptability of SAP to the elites by shielding fuel prices from foreign exchange market. All other sectors of were liberalized and the banking sector exploded. But the Naira remains fragile till now.

– Engr. Babajide A. Soyode, Fnsche, Fnae

Telephone: +234 – 803 – 321 – 8001

Email: Babajide.Soyode@gmail.com

Babajide A Soyode, a Nigerian engineer, is the President of Atlas Poligenics Limited, an oil and gas engineering consultancy firm, and chairman of the Board of Directors of Petrodata, the premier Nigerian upstream hydrocarbon databank, which now covers Cloud Storage services, Electronic Document Management Systems, Document Scanning and Digitisation. He began his career in 1970 as a Chemical Engineer with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and rose to become the Group General Manager in charge of Corporate Planning and Business Development. He was also the past President of the Nigerian Society of Chemical Engineers and serves actively as one of the council members.

V Fuels was celebrating the achievement of Factory Acceptance Testing (FAT) for the Cabinda refinery as we rounded up this edition. The fabricator’s message was clear: “We got this”. The first of the three phase 90,000Barrels Per Day crude processing facility to be installed in the enclave in the country’s northwest was inching to completion.

Things were also shaping up on location in Algeria’s Hassi Messaoud, where the joint venture of Técnicas Reunidas SA of Spain and South Korea’s Samsung Engineering has been tasked with engineering, construction, and procurement (EPC) contract for the 110,000BPD Hassi Messaoud III refinery. And of course, we are all aware that the next 12 months are the last 12 months on construction site for the epic 650,000BPD Dangote Refinery in Nigeria.

This last one year has been, for us here, one of the few moments in our 21 years of publishing the African hydrocarbon story, when we could proudly say that the “building is taking shape”.

True, we are not denying that the refining boom has come a tad late. The continent’s industrialization process has dragged. We just don’t want to worry about the negative part of the optics now.

Welcome to the REFINING GAP ANNUAL 2022.

And while you’re checking on the four pages devoted to the theme, be sure to catch up on production data, rig activity, domestic gas market and upstream asset sale in this April 2022 edition of our authoritative trade journal.

The Africa Oil+Gas Report is the primer of the hydrocarbon industry on the continent. It is the market leader in local contextualizing of global developments and policy issues and is the go-to medium for international corporations, local entrepreneurs, technical enterprises or financing institutions, for useful analyses of Africa’s oil and gas industry. It has been published by the Festac News Press Limited since November 2001, and since the COVID 19 season, as a monthly digital (pdf) publication, delivered to subscribers around the world. Its website remains www.africaoilgasreport.com and the contact email address is info@africaoilgasreport.com. Contact telephone numbers in our West African regional headquarters in Lagos are  +2347062420127, +234803652979, +2348023902519.

By Macson Obojemuinmoin

The NNPC Ltd, Nigeria’s state hydrocarbon company, has proposed a condensate refinery as part of the ‘development’ of the Kolmani River field in the north of the country.

In the said proposal, NNPC clearly notes that it…

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When the Nigerian independent Waltersmith Petroman, concludes a well it is currently drilling on the Ibigwe field in the east of the country, it will deliver the entire daily production from the new probe into its refinery in the vicinity of the field.

The company runs a 5,000Barrels of Oil Per Day (BOPD) modular refinery.

It is the only company, which processes its entire upstream output in a local facility, which is itself the first phase of a much bigger complex.

The Waltersmith Refinery complex started life in a grand style with a commissioning witnessed by over 300 oil and gas executives, most of them airlifted from Lagos and Abuja for the event, and a speaker line-up that included President Muhammadu Buhari, who directly addressed the gathering virtually from the State House, witnessed the commissioning.

Sitting in that glittering gathering, almost a year ago, cramped for space in a vast canopy, you could be forgiven for assuming that the country was launching the grand project itself: the 650,000BOPD Dangote Refinery, under construction for the past six years.

But this modest hydrocarbon processing project is part of an ambitious journey that began as a marginal oil field, estimated at no more than 20Million Barrels of crude in recoverable reserves.

The destination is an Industrial and Innovation Park, with a 50,000BOPD refinery complex and a 3,000MW gas-fired power plant as the centrepieces of a hub that will provide energy to 118, 000 households and 27, 000 commercial and industrial users.

The park is designed to be spread over 100 hectares of land initially, of which 65 hectares of land has been acquired. The Power Plant will supply power to nearby industries or industries which come to locate themselves in the hub. Waltersmith was awarded electricity generation license by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) in 2017.

The 5,000BOPD plant, with planned optimum output of about 271Million litres of refined petroleum products (Diesel, Kerosene, Heavy Fuel Oil-HFO and Naphtha) per annum, is thus the first of a three phase complex comprising a 20,000Barrel per day condensate refinery and a 25,000 crude oil refinery, planned for completion by 2022.

To fund this starter project, Waltersmith Petroman formed a Joint venture (JV) with the Nigerian Content Development & Monitoring Board, a Government parastatal which holds 30% to its 70%. The JV, named Waltersmith Refining and Petrochemical Company, got funding support from the African Finance Corporation (AFC), a pan-African Multilateral Development Financial Institution.

Even if the project is halted at this first phase, it is already an exception in the country.

As a rule, private Nigerian owned E&P companies do not aspire to be integrated entities.

Waltersmith is only the second company, out of over 20 Nigerian independent crude oil producers, to get into the business of running a refinery. It is instructive that the first: Niger Delta Petroleum Resources, also built its refinery on the back of a marginal oil field.

Established in 1996, Waltersmith Petroman acquired the Ibigwe Marginal Field (OML-16) license in 2004 and delivered first oil in 2008. It grew production to over 7,000BOPD, built a 15,000 BOPD Flowstation at Ibigwe to process crude from the Ibigwe Field and the neighbouring NNPC/ SEPLAT JV Ohaji South Field in OML-53. Anticipating additional growth in production from the vicinity, Waltersmith is expanding this facility to handle 20,000BOPD by the end of 2020.

Two intractable challenges that confront small producers like Waltersmith in delivering crude oil to the market are the incessant vandalism of export pipelines and high charges paid to both pipeline and terminal facility owners. At one point for Waltersmith was losing between 25% and 30% of the output before the crude got to the terminal. Then again, the company was paying as much as $8 per barrel on pipeline and terminalling charges.

The idea for the refinery came primarily from thinking to mitigate production losses. But gradually, what started as a route out of economic challenges started taking the shape of a higher calling.

“WE HAD BEEN PRODUCING OIL NOW FOR OVER A DECADE and of course, we had our own unique locational challenges but I then asked the question, is this it for our nation?”, wondered Abdulrazaq Isa, Waltersmith’s Chairman and co-founder. “Producing and exporting oil? Is this it for us, is there a way we can do something better?”

The company decided it was going to start small and build a modest modular refinery,“but side by side, we started asking the question, what can we do with the gas that we are producing, from which we had been generating about 1.2MW of electricity for ourselves on our site? I started asking why can’t I provide electricity for some other people?”

Razaq said that, as the refinery project started taking shape, “the next wave of thinking in our company was how to create an industrial infrastructure where we then begin to provide other services to other people. We can acquire a significant amount of land within our area: we are building a refinery, we are providing electricity for ourselves, we are providing water for ourselves, we are providing security for ourselves so why can’t we scale that up and do that with other people? Why don’t we create the same enabling environment within our area for those of us who are operating within that area and provide these same services to them?

That way, we can create jobs for people, people can co-locate factories and industries where we are and that way, we can impact the economy directly and begin to create an industrial base for the production of other things. That was the kind of thing that we are beginning to think about but that is in addition to expanding our refining capacity and our upstream business will of course continue to grow because we will continue to look for assets. We see our upstream business as an enabler for doing things. We in this business, must look at other sectors of the economy and continue to intervene in them because we earn significant resources from the E&P segment of our business”.

By 2018, Final Investment Decision (FID) had been taken and in October 2018 the groundbreaking ceremony was done, effectively kicking off the construction phase in November 2018.

FEED STOCK FOR THE EXPANSION

The 5,000BOPD refinery utilises own operated crude as feedstock, but negotiations are ongoing with both SEPLAT and NNPC on Crude Sales and Purchase agreements for the over 7,000BOPD NNPC/SEPLAT OML-53 JVO haji South production processed at Waltersmith’s Ibigwe Flow station. There is also ongoing conversations, for some commercial arrangement with other parties who either hold positions in, or operate, fields sited within 30-km of the Ibigwe Marginal Field.

Front End Engineering Design (FEED) for the 25,000 Barrels Per Day (BPD) Phase 2 Condensate Refinery was completed in Q1 2020, with feasibility study concluded in Q2 2020 and the EPCIC Contracting process has been initiated with Final Investment Decision planned for Q4 2020 and the delivery expected by Q4 2022.

Phase 2 will output about 1.4Billion litres per year of refined petroleum products (Premium Motor Spirit – PMS, Diesel, Kerosene, Aviation Jet Fuel and HFO) when completed, in addition to the 271Million litres from the Phase 1. “The combined products expected at full capacity, from the three phases, is about 2.7BIllion litres of products per annum. “This represents 10% of the total refined products consumption in Nigeria”, Isa said. The groundbreaking ceremony for 2nd and 3_rd  Phases of the refinery complex was done in conjunction with the commissioning of the 5,000BOPD Phase 1 Refinery last November.

THE LINEUP OF SPEAKERS AT THE commissioning ceremony comprised, largely the CEOs of the companies expected to provide condensate and crude oil feedstocks for the next two phases.

One of the first speakers was Roger Brown, CEO of Seplat, operator of OML 53, the condensate rich asset on which the 300MMscf/d ANOH gas project, promoted also by Seplat, was being constructed. “This plant means that crude oil from this area will be refined in this area and sold to people from this area”, Brown gushed. “And this is what the future is got to be. It’s got be utilized within our areas and states. I’m delighted to say the crude stock from our OML 53 production will be refined here and sold in Imo State”.

Waltersmith also has eyes on crude oil from Egbema field (operated by NPDC, an NNPC subsidiary) and Egbema West (held by Shell Petroleum in JV with NNPC). The assets, “located in nearby OML 20, are excellent sources of crude oil feedstock for our refinery”, Isa told the gathering.

Chike Nwosu, CEO, Waltersmith

This is what Osa Okunbor, Chair of Shell Companies in Nigeria, referenced when he spoke. “This project sits very, very close to several of our land assets and there’s a lot of room for collaboration to ensure that the required feedstock is obtained”, Okunbor said.

“I want to reaffirm this commitment working with our partners in the SPDC JV in particular, the GMD of NNPC to see how we can fulfill this commitment we made to support this project with the required feedstock.”

One sticky point in Waltersmith’s negotiations for feedstock from these nearby fields, sited within 30-km of the Ibigwe Marginal Field, is NNPC’s own development plans.

The state owned firm’s decision to site a condensate refinery, right in the Assa North- Ohaji South (ANOH) field area, had been as ore headache in the planning for Waltersmith’s 2nd Phase Condensate Refinery.

Waltersmith had been in discussion with Seplat Petroleum, to have the latter inject the condensate from its ANOH field gas project to the refinery. But NNPC too, as Seplat’s partner on the asset, is angling for a condensate refinery in the vicinity. NNPC wants to construct four condensate refineries of 30,000BPD capacity each, and site one of them in the ANOH area. Its primary feedstock is the same gas condensate from ANOH that Waltersmith is seeking to take from Seplat.

Waltersmith has been negotiating with NNPC to either merge its plans into the Ibigwe Phase 2 Refinery, or for the two of them to find some other middle ground. This is why Waltersmith’s press releases and its several public statements in the past year have repeatedly contained the line: “Critical to the success of these projects is the Federal Government’s support, through NNPC, to conclude on advanced discussions to grant Waltersmith access to nearby Condensate feedstock in Assa North / Ohaji”.

Of critical importance, then, was the speech of Mele Kolo Kyari, the NNPC’s Group Managing Director, at the commissioning.

“We have engaged Waltersmith severally and we have assured them that between us and our partners, we will make feedstock available to this refinery” Kyari declared. “ NNPC will continue to collaborate with other investors to establish more refineries”.

THE HUB, THE COMMUNITY

As putative feedstock providers were providing verbal guarantees of crude condensate and gas supply for the refinery, the basic blocks of the larger industrial park were also being assembled.

Isa, the Chairman of WalterSmith Group, announced the “ground breaking of the development of our Industrial and Innovation Park with the flagging of the Technical Support Agreement with United Nations Industrial Development

Organisation (UNIDO) and United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)”.

Chike Nwosu, Waltersmith’s Chief Executive Officer, said that once the company “can provide the basic needs of manufacturers which is around energy, we expect them to be attracted to these areas and we expect that to begin to create commercial hub around the Ibigwe area where the inherent entrepreneurship of the people of that area will be given the juices for them to grow and so, you will see small and medium enterprises growing along with the larger industrial manufacturers”.

Nwosu has heard so much talk about companies’ ability to pay for the industrial park services, especially provision of power.

He has a response: “Waltersmith has a paradigm shift”, he explained. “The ability to pay conversion is about delivering power, you don’t deliver power because the end users don’t have the ability to pay. Why don’t you create that ability to pay through a couple of steps? The first step is creating the environment for customers who can pay which is the industrial complex.

“There is need to create an industrial complex where manufacturing companies who can pay for the energy because it is cheaper for them and who you can provide with access to ports.

For instance, Port Harcourt is near us, Onitsha is near us including the Port Harcourt airport and other airports within our jurisdiction.

There are exit routes to export anything that you want to do. This should be created for the manufacturers, bring them because they have the ability to pay”.