Lagos – Following Nigeria’s quest and intense desire for Direct Foreign Investment (DFI), especially in oil and gas infrastructure development, Blooming Faith Petroleum Limited, a subsidiary of Blooming Faith Global Holdings Limited, has concluded plans to partner with the Nigerian government to build and operate a 200, 000 barrels per day capacity (BPD) refinery in the coastal state of Akwa Ibom.
Senior management team of the organization, who are currently in Nigeria to kick-start the procedure for the project, confirmed the meetings were held with the leadership of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), with a view to forming a strategic relationship for the sole purpose of producing refined products to shore up domestic consumption in Nigeria.
Chairman of the company, Dr. Robert Yeung, while speaking on the development, stated that the company’s interest in building a refinery was fired up by the discovery that Nigeria, a major oil producing nation in the world, relied on importation of refined products to attend to its domestic needs.
Yeung said: “We became immediately interested for two basic reasons, firstly as a business entity we have identified the fact that there is a vacuum to be filled, hence there is market for our produce when we get started. This is so because the government of Nigeria will not import what it can access locally as being produced by refineries in-country.
“Secondly, because of our confidence in Nigeria as an investors destination of choice in Africa as we know that with a population of almost 200 million people we can never get it wrong with the country and its people.
“We have no interest in exporting refined products as our basic objective is to produce refined petroleum products for the Nigerian market, discussions are currently on-going with the NNPC and the Department of Petroleum Resources and we hope at the end we will get all necessary approvals as we are ready to commence immediately with one hundred percent funding capability” he stressed.
The company’s International Operations Director, Mr. John Erigwe, stated that the company had the financial capability and technical expertise to see the project through.
According to him, the company was deeply interested and highly committed to investing in Nigeria’s economy and it was “for this reason we sought the audience of the leadership of the NNPC under the Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, to meet and present our ideas and proposals to the corporation.”
Erigwe added: “We are fully interested in doing business in Nigeria and we don’t require any road-show to put our funds in the Nigerian economy as we have done our feasibility studies and risk analysis to conclude that Nigeria in spite of bureaucratic bottle necks is still an investor’s choice destination.
“Our refinery if approved and completed would be second in size and output capacity in Nigeria second only to the ongoing Dangote refinery which we gathered would commence operations in 2019. Nigeria surely needs these types of investments to boost local production of refined products as it is unheard of to have a particular commodity in commercial quantity and be unable to maximize its usage for the benefit of its people, and we as investors have seen considerable seriousness for direct foreign investment from the current administration and that is a major part of our motivation,” he stressed.
The company hoped to site its refinery in Akwa-Ibom State and also announced its desire to ensure that the refinery would be built to a world-class standard upon completion, one that would be a reference point in the refining business in Africa immediately it kicked off.
Highlighting the issues further, Mr. Yemie Adeoye, producer Energie Platform and Chief Executive Officer of D’ Alphaxristi Limited, consultants to the investors, stated that it was pertinent that the Government eased the pathway to investments as a way of encouraging investors to commit funds to projects.
Adeoye said: “This is one of those investments that will have direct impact on the ordinary Nigerian people and the government should give such project immense priority. Investors must be encouraged with incentives and access to government support when required.
“For instance while the government is traveling around the world to woo investors, Blooming Faith international of Hong Kong came down to Nigeria to kick-start the investment process for their organization in Nigeria.
“In my humble opinion these types of investors who have shown this level of seriousness should be treated with high level seriousness, granted concessions where necessary and requested and most importantly to such businessmen is the ease of investment process.
“This project, between construction and completion, would generate thousands of job opportunities for Nigerians both directly and indirectly and in a country where the unemployment rate is on the high, this is not an opportunity the federal government can afford to treat with levity,” he stated.
Blooming Faith International is a Hong Kong based hydra-headed organization with investments and operations cutting through Oil, gas, power, renewable energy, finance, agriculture, healthcare services and drugs manufacturing.
It would be recalled that Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, was in China a few days ago to create investment awareness for the Nigerian economy.
The very successful road show is bringing into the Nigerian economy about $100 billion for oil and gas infrastructure.
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