Bayelsa to employ 30,000 workers in fertilizer-petrochemical firm

 

July 1, 2015 : Simon Utebor, Yenagoa 

The Bayelsa State Government is set to employ no fewer than 30,000 workers, particularly indigenes, in its $3.5bn fertiliser and petrochemical company, State Development and Investment Corporation, has said.

The Deputy Managing Director, BDIC, Mr. Tam Alazigha, in an interview with journalists in Yenagoa on Wednesday said the $3.5bn Brass Fertilizer and Petrochemical project to be sited at Odioma in Brass Local Government Area is expected to generate a turnover of $1.5bn.

He, therefore, predicted a prosperous future for the people of the state as the corporation intensified action on restructuring the state economy and expanding economic opportunities.

Alazigha said the new offices that were opened in South Africa, United Kingdom and Atlanta and the United States, would “take Bayelsa to the world and bring the world to Bayelsa”.

He said the development would open outposts in strategic locations in the various key markets in order to leverage on opportunities that the markets offered to drive the restoration of the Bayelsa economy.

Alazigha said, “The $3.5bn Brass Fertilizer and Petrochemical project at Odioma, which is expected to generate a turnover of $1.5bn will employ about 30,000 Bayelsans. This high-impact catalytic project is expected to produce 5,000 metric tonnes of Methanol per day, 2,200 metric tonnes per day of Ammonia and 7,700 metric tonnes per day of Urea for domestic and export markets.

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“This humongous project will ensure availability of high-grade fertilizer for farmers throughout the planting season and meet 25 per cent of the country’s projected annual domestic demand of 10 million metric tonnes. The BDIC is to take up a 10 per cent equity stake in the project.

“The only property owned by the corporation are those in the U.K, located at St. John’s Wood registered under BDIC UK Ltd and forms part of the assets in the balance sheet of the corporation. The property was bought at £2.3m but now valued at over £3m with a monthly rental income of £7,000. For the office in the United States, the property was purchased in BIDC’s name in 2013 for $ 850,000 and was leased as a property with a monthly income of $5,000.”

He said other achievements included the $300m Liquefied Petrochemical Gas project at Agge, with a projected turnover of $100m and which would produce butane or cooking gas.

Alazigha also stated that the corporation was into serious negotiation with Microsoft and Goggle to facilitate deployment of the much vaunted white space technology in the state to make internet available in the rural areas and hence build businesses.

He said the small and medium scale businesses were also key areas of interest in which, adding that much had been done by BDIC to change the state from being a civil service state to a modern economy with a lot of enterprises.

According to him, Bayelsa State with a Gross State Productof $18.5bn (N2.4 trilion) and vast resources in oil and gas is a rich state.

He added, however, that such status had yet to fully benefit the people as it should be.
Alazigha said that it was clear to the state government on getting into office in 2012 that public funds accruing from the consolidated revenue were grossly inadequate to address the huge challenges of infrastructure deficit.

Based on this, he said, the government consequently came up with BDIC as a special purpose vehicle and strategic enabler of market-driven development which could also be a fall back option in times of national or global financial crisis and emergency.

The BDIC, which now has an asset base of over $1.2bn, he said, leverages private sector funds and expertise to grow wealth of Bayelsans and insulate the economy from oil price volatility.

Alazigha, who came to the job with vast experience having worked with JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank and BNP Paribas as investment banker, said the BDIC idea, as a global best practice, was playing similar roles as in such investment institutions like the Qatar Investment Authority, Malaysia Development Berhad, and the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa.

 

 

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