Sets June 15 to commence process

Bitumen production’ll reduce cost on road construction-Adegbite

As PwC assures transparent process of concessioning

By Gabriel Ewepu – Abuja

The Federal Government, Monday, disclosed concessioning of bitumen blocks to prospective local and international companies in order to reduce importation of the commodity.

This was made known by the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Arc Olamilekan Adegbite, during a press conference on ‘Concession of the Delineated Nigerian Bitumen Blocks’.

Adegbite who pointed out that with the huge deposits of bitumen in the country, which ranks Nigeria as sixth largest in terms of deposit of the commodity in the world, there is no other time than now to harness this nature’s gift to Nigeria for the benefit of Nigerians and boosting road infrastructure, conserving forex used for importation of the commodity for road construction, exporting it for revenue generation, and creating jobs for the teeming youth.

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He also recalled that Nigeria does not import barite anymore since October 2021 after the Ministry launched local production of the commodity in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and also assured investors and Nigerians that the bitumen process will also record similar success.

He said with local production coming on soon Bitumen as a crucial component of asphalt in road construction will bridge the gap of roads paved, and added that the development of Bitumen will lead to import substitution, local content development and increased value addition of the mining sector.

He said: “Indeed, Mr. President gave us a mandate to galvanize the sector as a medium of diversifying the economy from oil, creating jobs and generating revenue for government. In fulfillment of this mandate, we are here seeking to concession the nation’s bitumen blocks.

“The Nigerian bitumen deposits is ranked sixth in the world and also ranked in quality as one of the best as attested to by Canadian firms that have made inquiries, and today Canada is leading in bitumen in the world but they have come into Nigeria and they are much interested in our bitumen deposit. The Bitumen is close to the surface and our Bitumen is easy is to mine.

“This is a testament to the quality of the bitumen that we have with a total reserve of 42.74 billion metric tonnes of what we have in Nigeria. This has largely unexplored because we do not have the right investment in that sector.

“What we are doing to day is going to create a huge opportunity for domestic bitumen production to replace the country’s reliance on imported bitumen.

“We are going to produce bitumen at a stable price, for local consumption and at the same time we will be able to export our bitumen abroad.

“There have been two previous attempts at concessioning Nigeria’s bitumen blocks. In 2002, two blocks (now 307B and 307C) were concessioned. However, in 2005, we revoked their licenses due to the failure of the concessionaires (NISSAND and Bitumen Exploration and Exploitation Company of Nigeria Limited, BEECON) to live up to the development agreement signed.

“In 2008, another round of bitumen bidding exercise was conducted which led to the delineation of the bitumen resource areas into three large blocks A, B and C. Blocks A and C were advertised for Expression of Interest, which resulted in the pre-qualification of nine companies.”

Meanwhile, the Minister announced PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC, as Transactional Advisers of the bitumen project.

“And we have brought in an international company of repute, Messer PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC, now they are the transactional adviser on this project.

“This is to take it to a logical conclusion that would guarantee that those who coming are going to be active players and of course will enhance bitumen production in Nigeria”, he said.

He also recalled that to ensure that Nigeria’s bitumen resources are fully harnessed for industrial and infrastructural development, he constituted a nine-member Ministerial Bitumen Development Committee on 31 January 2020 with the Director General of the Mining Cadastre Office, MCO, as Chairman of the Committee.

“That committee’s work is what has crystallized on what we are doing today. Now we have a body of data that the Transactional Adviser is going to make sure the concession show a transparent process.

“In the next couple of days they are going to have secession with the international bodies to make people aware of this concessioning process, and they are going to be taking questions and also set guidelines on how this concessioning process will go”, he said.

According to him, 15 June 2022 is the date for request of communication, and for transparency sake it will be published.

“On that day everybody will be availed the opportunity to participate in his process. What we are doing today is to sensitise the country locally and also internationally to the press, which has started today, and what we have started today is to take this to the market, which will culminate in publication by the 15 of June 2022 requesting for qualification.

“The Committee carried out an inventory of internal existing infrastructure; compiled available geological information; re-established contact with previous interested companies and developed a framework for transparent allocation of the Bitumen resources”, he said.

Meanwhile, one of the members of the Bitumen Steering Committee, Director General, Nigerian Geological Survey Agency, NGSA, Dr Abdulrazaq Garba bitumen deposits extend to Lagos Ogun, Ondo and Edo States.

The Partner/Mining Leader, PwC, Cyril Azobu, while giving an overview of Bitumen programme and transaction made it known that the company received a letter from the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development in 2021to act as Transaction Advisers assure for the concessioning of the delineated bitumen blocks to potential investors.

Their responsibility is to look for qualified local and international investors with prerequisite experience, technology expertise, and financial capacity selected to carry out bitumen development to meaningful extraction level through a transparent and procurement process as enshrined in the Nigerian Mining Act 2007, and in line with global industry best practices.

Vanguard News Nigeria