FOR the first time in Nigeria, a private firm, Pinnacle oil and Gas limited, has concluded plans to build a  private mooring buoy facility in the Lekki Free Zone (LFZ) with a view to reduce cost associated with the shipment of petroleum products.

Disclosing this at the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding, MoU ceremony between Pinnacle Oil and Gas Limited and  China Petroleum Technology Development Corporation (CPTDC) , Pinnacle Managing Director, Mr Peter Mbah, said that the Single Buoy Mooring project will gulp as much as $250million(N39billion)

Mbah stated that  the partnership with the China Petroleum Technology Development Corporation (CPTDC) and Lekki Free Trade Zone Company (LFTZC) Limited would lead to the development of the Nigerian downstream sector as the free zone provided a more convenient alternative to loading of oil products.

He explained that  the Single Point Mooring facility at Lekki Free Zone would enable petroleum cargo vessels to anchor and discharge products via the network of undersea and onshore pipelines to respective tank farms, adding that under the MOU executed by Lekki Free Trade Zone Company Limited, Pinnacle Oil and Gas Limited and China Petroleum Technology Development Corporation, Pinnacle is expected to complete the $250 million SPM facility with over 11 kilometres of subsea and on shore pipeline network by December 2013 when many of the tank farms proposed for the Zone would have also been completed.

“The Lekki Free Zone SPM couldn’t have come at a better time than now that government is withdrawing subsidy on petrol, considering that factors which impact on the product price like demurrage and littering of cargo- dock at the jetty  would be eliminated. This will therefore reduce the landed cost of petroleum products considerably,” Mbah said.

Speaking in similar vein, Managing Director, Lekki Free Trade Zone Company Limited, Mr. Chen Xiaoxing, noted the strategic importance and location of the free zone as the new economic hub for Nigeria.

He noted that industry operators have  found the Lekki Free Zone to be the most suitable alternative especially  considering its location at the outskirts of Lagos and with proximity to the Ijebu Ode axis from where most trucks come to load petroleum products in Lagos.

He said the absence of mooring and discharge facilities at the Zone has denied oil and gas operators opportunity to tap the benefits of Lekki Free Zone, adding that the SPM would address this challenge and enhance the position of the zone as major economic catalyst.

Single Point Mooring is an off-shore anchored loading buoy that serves as mooring point and interconnect to tankers loading or off-loading gas or fluid products.