New oil, gas facility to address Apapa gridlock, cost of Nigeria-bound freight

Pinnacle Oil and Gas Limited has stated that its billion-dollar project scheduled to be commissioned by President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday would address the incessant traffic gridlock caused by the inefficiencies at the Apapa port.

Indeed, the nation loses about N5 billion daily due to the gridlock at the Apapa port as a result of the inability to evacuate the dry cargoes at the port which also hinders the federal government’s ability to generate revenue by way of excise duties.

Apart from this, the freight cost of Nigeria-bound vessels would have to pay ten times more because they spend days on the nation’s waters due to port congestion.

The Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Peter Mbah, in a chat with journalists, said the offshore intake facility will help in the free movement of dry cargoes, noting that vessels that would ordinarily wait for months to berth at the ports would be reduced.

“This will go a long way to impact the freight cost. The earnings of the federal government will also be enhanced because of the fast movement of cargo. Our facility would also ensure that there is a quick turnaround time for businesses. What typically you should have done in 32 days, would be reduced to 48 hours. So, there are both socioeconomic and business challenges that this project would address,” he added.

Speaking further on the facility, the Pinnacle boss added that the facility is a two-offshore intake facility that has a Single Point Mooring (SPM) that sits at a water depth of 23 meters with two cargo pipelines of 24-inch diameter and a Conventional Buoy Mooring (CBM) that sits at a water depth of 17 meters which has two cargo pipelines of 16 diameters.

He added that the facility would address multiple handlings of petroleum products from sea to shore, pointing out that its SPM and CPM allow oil and gas operators to take mother vessels to an open sea where there is enough depth for mother vessels to discharge from the sea to an onshore terminal that has storage facilities.

“Currently, the way the operations in the downstream work is that you have these large vessels. Those large vessels would not be able to go to the ports because of the draft restrictions, because the water channel is not deep enough for those big vessels to go to our ports where you have the storage terminals. What typically happens is that those big vessels which we refer to as mother vessels, sit at the anchorage, wait there and then we go with smaller vessels, which we refer to as daughter vessels, and we go and lighter the mother vessels.

“A typical mother vessel would have a volume of between 80 and 120 million litres and a typical shuttle vessel would do between 15 and 20 million litres. So, for a mother vessel of 80 million litres, the shuttle vessel would need to do a minimum of four voyages, and for each voyage, it takes an average of eight days to move from the port, go to the mother vessel, load 20 million litres and go back to the terminal and discharge. That operation takes eight days to do. So what that has done is, those typical voyages you do that take you eight days and you have to do it four times to empty 80 million litres of product, which takes you two days. In 48 hours, you take that vessel to a Pinnacle terminal, you are done discharging,” he added.

He explained that what the firm has done is to provide an efficient discharge facility that allows the firm to do in two days which takes the industry typically 32 days to do, thus leading to a faster turnaround time better than its competitors.

He added that in terms of market leadership, Pinnacle is the market leader in the B2B space, boasting that Pinnacle is the largest in terms of volume supplies to businesses and marketers.