Buhari reaffirms commitment to growth of oil, gas investments 

President Muhammadu Buhari has restated the present administration’s support to drive both local and foreign Investments into the nation’s oil and gas sector.

“And this is yet another demonstration of that. As the nation’s largest sub-national economy, we understand what our responsibilities are, to lead by example, to create that enabling environment that is most conducive for investment across all sectors,” he said.

He said that the petroleum products terminal has been designed to make possible the direct transfer of products from large vessels to the Conventional Bouy mooring (CBM) and the Single Point Mooring (SPM) facility. 

“This facility will not only serve Nigeria. It is also been positioned to look at the opportunity of export on the West African corridor. Curating that single market, which Lagos will continue to remain the commercial and logistics hub of the entire West African region,” he said.

Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer, of Pinnacle Oil and Gas Limited, Peter Mbah, said besides the oil and gas markets facing complex issues at the port, the port inefficiencies have resulted in a significant negative impact on the Nigerian economy as it has translated to high final cost per litre of products and does increase the size of under-recoveries done by the Federation. 

He noted that the industry structure emanating from the operating model has also resulted in the congestion of the Apapa area with significant negative social impacts, leading to a high volume of traffic on all access into Apapa with a well-known effect on business life and the health of residents along these routes. 

“In deciding to take the challenge of transforming the industry, Pinnacle was driven by his mantra of being a company driven by innovation. We have always believed that the role of business and community is always to seek ways to make things better for the community. In line with this, in 2011, we started working on a concept to solve this problem, which has resulted in the ultra-modern facility we are commissioning today. To ensure the high quality of the resulting solution, we used some of the world’s best vendors from home and abroad in the design and delivery of this project,” he said.

He said the company has commenced the expansion of the size of the storage in two stages to the final designed capacity of 1 billion litres, while also diversifying its product range to include the capacity to store other products like LPG, ATK and other classes of Kerosene. 

“We will also be incorporating the capability to blend products to produce various specifications of products to serve other international markets. We are already in advanced conversations with the Dangote group regarding collaborations to complement the operations of the nearby Dangote refinery which is soon to come on stream, with a view to forming the nucleus of what we believe will become Africa’s largest energy logistics hub,” he said.

“For us at Pinnacle, this facility is a monument to God’s divine inspiration, as well as patience and perseverance which carried us through the over 10 challenging years it took us to deliver this project. We have enjoyed support from the Federal Government and its agencies throughout the rigorous licensing processes involving the issuance of over 30 licenses culminating in the approval of the FEC, significant assistance and collaboration from NNPC which not only provided support through the process but wasted no time in signing a far-reaching contract of service with us to utilise the facility, continued support from our regulators such as NMDPRA, NIMASA, NPA, NEPZA, Ministry of Environment etc. during the pre and post-construction stage culminating in this commissioning,” he said.