By Tyobur Adanyi
Greefield Assets Limited says it will spend over $6 billion in the next 10 years for the construction of Ibom deep sea port project in a move that the company assures will add $250 billion to Nigeria’s GDP upon completion.
This was revealed by Paul Obanua, the group managing director of the company in Abuja, who was on a visit to discuss matters relating to the project with the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi.
He described the project as a long-term investment with Greenfield partners in the consortium, including banks, development finance like the Development Bank of South Africa, the Macury group, the number one infrastructure bank in the world with an asset base of $350bn.
“They are the biggest that are coming with us on this project. We are going to recoup our investment over a period of 50 years. Also, in the next 50 years, over $250 billion will be added to the Nigerian GDP,” he assured.
The Ibom deep sea project, Obanua said, will become the answer to ports congestion in Nigeria and probably in the West African and Central African regions.
Congestion at the ports has been a challenge for the Federal Government as it muted establishment of dry ports as part of the solution to easing congestion, the latest effort towards this goal being the inauguration of a committee to work out modalities for the establishment of a dry port in Kaduna State.
“The sea ports will have the deepest draft in Africa which will allow vessels, mother vessels in the shores, get to the port terminal unlike what you have in Lagos Apapa wharf; mother vessels can come all the way to the port which will make Nigeria a shipping hub in west Africa and central Africa.
“In this Ibom deep sea port, we are also going to have oil and gas offshore supply base. We are going to have an NLNG train at the ports as well to take care of all the gas flaring that takes place around Akwa Ibom State and all of that and generate revenue for the economy, create over 100,000 direct and indirect jobs”, Obanua stated.
He explained that the project in the first phase would gulp $9 million and when completed, over $6bn would have been spent.
“The project by the time we complete the third phase, our consortium would have been able to invest over $6bn in the next 10 years in the project. But the first phase of the project is $9 million where you have the break water, the jet A at the ports”.
Explaining the mode of funding for the project, the Greenfield boss said the company would fund the project 100 percent to guarantee its timely completion.
“Once we get the letter of no objection, we will go straight to produce the full business scale which is a bankable document that will include developing the geological master plan, the top poles and several onshore and offshore surveys.”
According to him, once apprpval is obtained from the government, some $900 million will be deployed, as Greenfield and its partners are funding the project 100 percent and require no money from the federal or state
governments.
Speaking on how the company would recoup its investment, Obanua said the concession project is to be built, maitained, operated and transferred after 50 years.
Expressing optimism that the first phase of the project would be executed in record time of 14 months, Obanua hinted that the minister has made commitment to cut off all bureaucratic bottleneck to get it kick started.
