By Jim Rex-Lawson Moses

A new storage facility, being constructed at the Lekki Free Trade Zone by the Pinnacle Oil and Gas Limited, is capable of generating up to 20, 000 new jobs upon completion, the Managing Director and Chief Executive, Mr. Peter Mbah, has said.

Mbah disclosed this at the weekend during the facility tour and opening of the 2012 Eko-Expo and the Lekki Free Trade Zone Investors’ Forum, which was declared open by the Executive Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola.

The Pinnacle boss said the project, expected to gulp about $250million, which will comprise a 400,000 Metric tonne, MT tank farm for storage on the shore that will be connected to a Single Point Mooring, SPM and Conventional Buoy Mooring (CBM) facilities. The facility also includes an 11kilometer sub-sea and onshore pipeline network with a capacity to handle up to 80 percent of the total national refined petroleum products demand,

According to Mbah, the facility when in place will eliminate any need for lightering or other trans-shipment operations as the norm in the Nigerian downstream industry today, and will also negate any need for investment in the construction of a shore side jetty.

Furthermore, the mooring facilities will enable petroleum cargo vessels of between 5,000MT DTW and 155,000MT DTW capacities to anchor and discharge products with minimal vessel congestion as compared to the current situation on the Apapa/Kirikiri axis.

In line with the above, Mba stated that Pinnacle Oil has entered into a Joint Memorandum of Understanding with the Lekki Free Trade Zone Company and China Petroleum Technology and Development Corporation (CPTDC) for the development of this project.

The facility is reputed to be Nigeria’s first commercial offshore products terminal infrastructure, otherwise known as a deep sea floating jetty, aimed at the transfer of refined petroleum products and gas from tankers of various sizes to tank farms on the shore as well as for the loading of products on tankers for distribution along the West African coast.

Mbah, further said, ‘’the impetus to develop this proposed petroleum products handling infrastructure is based on certain fundamentals. The Lekki Free Trade Zone, which will make it possible and easy to import and export products, thus enabling the servicing of the entire West African market.

The development of the Zone into a major hub for industrial and commercial activity in Lagos State, necessitated the Zone to make provisions for the expected high consumption of refined products by allotting about 10 parcels of land for the construction of tank farms.

“The Zone will likely attract even more relevance as petroleum companies are discouraged from locating new storage facilities in the Apapa/Coconut axis. The growing need for petroleum products in Nigeria and the West African sub-region, and the increasing need for importation of products, and the resulting high volume of imported refined products into the sub-region is anticipated to continue growing, in spite of the ongoing efforts in markets like Nigeria to encourage local refining via deregulation.’’

He added that ‘’The project, expected to be completed by December 2013, is a reception facility for imported petroleum products, and will ultimately be the future of refined petroleum products handling, thus making the Lekki Free Trade Zone, the hub for petroleum products distribution in the Gulf of Guinea’’ he added.

The event which was graced by the Minister of Trade and Investment, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, also had the Chinese Consul General, Mr. Liu Xianfa, in attendance.