Despite the negative perception of Nigeria in the global business space, the Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics base (LADOL) has joined the few Nigerian companies that have crossed all barriers to play in the league of global leading firms that shape business development in the world’s shipping sector.
LADOL is a 100 percent private indigenous owned maritime, oil and gas logistics facility.
The $600 million logistics facility, located opposite Apapa harbour, started gaining traction from foreign and local investors after the promoters invested in the development of Greenfield oil and gas logistics and maritime Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in the Lagos area.
Industry analysts attribute the growth of LADOL to the construction of the fabrication and integration yard of the Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) oil platform, known as Egina, worth over $3.8 billion and built in partnership with Samsung Heavy Industry (SHI) as technical partner for Total Oil Company.
The analysts say the integration facility, which has received many commendations from companies and government representatives across the global, is positioned to not only attract over $10 billion worth of investments into Nigeria in the next few years, but to also create engineering capacity and jobs for Nigerians and serve as source of foreign exchange for the economy.
“LADOL’s investment exemplifies the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board’s (NCDMB) vision of domestication of industry operation, creation of job opportunity for Nigerians as well as extracting legacy for major industry projects,” Simbi Kesiye Wabote, executive secretary, NCDMB, said during his recent visit to LADOL base.
Wabote, who disclosed that LADOL and Samsung had invested over $300 million in the building of the fabrication, which has become the largest in West Africa, assured the board would continue to work with LADOL and Samsung to ensure that they execute the Egina project to the later and create thousands of jobs for Nigerians.
Recently, some Norwegian and UK trade delegates comprising of companies in oil and gas, general industrial and manufacturing firms that have been trying to enter into Nigerian market, visited the LADOL FTZ.
“Our international publicity is to sell Nigeria and we are trying to attract companies into Nigeria because many of the companies that visited LADOL recently would end up investing in Nigeria. Most of them will partner Nigerian companies like LADOL and other companies that have invested in developing facilities. And this would enable them to have access to one of the biggest market in the world,” Amy Jadesimi, managing director, LADOL, said in an interview with BusinessDay.
Jadesimi, who was a panellist in the recently held 2016 Danish Maritime Forum tagged, ‘Unleashing the Potentials of the Global Maritime Industry,’ predicted that more indigenous players would invest in building transportation infrastructure and industries in West Africa, and such investments would be protected by the Local Content Act of 2010.
According to Jadesimi, there would be emergence of local players in West African shipping value chain, which would be made possible by the shift from the old business model that allows big multinationals to venture into an undeveloped area, develop it and left it in poverty.
“It is when the indigenous players in a country develop the infrastructure, create the middle-class that in turn creates more demand and take about 100 million people above poverty line in West Africa, that there will be global growth. This is because such business model does not only improve the capacity created locally, but also increases the capacity created globally,” she said.
Continuing, she stated that West African countries would have new players coming into the shipping industry, and their investment would be supported by the government protectionist policy known as Local Content, which would guarantee them a sizable percentage of the market.
“This is actually going to improve and grow the size of the economy, because by not having those developments in West African, you are making it impossible to trade in a way that creates the middle class, allows for manufacturing, creates jobs and have increased capacity in the right place,” she said further.
In his view, Kim Fejfer, CEO, AP Moller Maersk Group, advised companies to turn the risk in the global maritime industry into opportunities.
“The digital world is the fact that we need to take into consideration, but there is also the physical part of the world. Today, we have about 7 billion people in the world, which would grow to about 9 billion in the next 20-25 years. Imagine what this means in terms of food for the people, waste to be transported, clean water, energy and electricity, among others, to be transported,” Fejfer said.
The forum, which had about 200 players in the global maritime industry, also involved high-level panel discussions featuring key business leaders, top government officials and regulators, including LADOL. It was organised to project the outlook for the shipping business, given the current economic realities, and to also draw a growth path for the sector in the next few years.
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