FG Sets Up Six New Fertiliser Plants
By Clara Nwachukwu
 2nd NOV 2006

The Federal Government has called for a market alliance among oil and gas operators to be able to develop and maximise both the domestic and export markets.

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Edmund Daukoru, made the call on Monday, while declaring open the International Gas Conference, organised by the Nigerian Gas Association in Abuja.

Daukoru, represented buy the Presidential Adviser on Petroleum Matters, Alhaji Ja’afar Paki, noted, “World economic growth, changing energy markets coupled with advances in technology, have combined to transform gas into a competitive global energy option.”

He added that while there had been some growth through liquefied natural gas exports from the Nigeria LNG joint venture, domestic gas utilisation had been rather low, contrary to government’s expectations.
He stated that with the market alliance, government would be able to achieve its for increased domestication of gas for a rapid domestic economic growth.

He stated that so far, the domestic gas sector had been dominated by the power sector, which accounted for over 90 per cent of the domestic gas utilisation.

He said that although government had made efforts through policy initiatives, such as duty and Value Added Tax waivers, devoting 300,000 metric tonnes to grow the domestic gas industry, responses in domestic utilisation were still below expectations.

Specifically, in other sectors like the liquefied petroleum gas, he said that government had begun remediation of LPG shortages through the establishment of straddle gas plants to strip propane and butane, by-products of cooking gas from large high volume gas transmission lines.

According to him, “Large-scale straddle gas plants of 42,000 MT capacity respectively are being built at Izombe and Ogharefe fields and are nearing completion.”

He further said that private investors were now geared towards establishing LPG depots, while the Bureau of Public Enterprises had begun making moves to privatise nine LPG storage depots with a cumulative capacity of 12,000 MT.

In line with boosting domestication of gas, government has also planed to set up six new Greenfield fertilizer plants in the country, thus bringing to number to seven.

Although the locations of the new plants were not disclosed, they are to have a combined capacity of 1.5bn cubic feet per day.

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