Report of a year-long study that may land on Federal Government’s lap says Nigeria stands a chance of creating almost 1.3 million jobs in two years by merely rolling out a policy on ‘co-location,’ meaning allowing idle facilities in some oil assets to be shared by new investors.
The report seen by BusinessDay shows that between 1,060,000 and 1,266,877 could be created by allowing new plants and investors to share spare and idle infrastructure in oil assets, such as in Warri Refinery, Port Harcourt Refinery, Kaduna Refinery, the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), and some others.
Some of the infrastructural facilities expected to attract investors in the co-location scheme include roads, water, power supply, security, etc.
According to the paper prepared by a team led by Solomon Adeleye, titled ‘Framework and Implementation Roadmap for Co-location as a Strategy for Gas-Based Industrialisation,’ the NLNG alone would generate 20,000 jobs if its spare facilities were leased out to petrochemical plants that would also use its wastes as raw materials.
The report which has been discussed at a parley in a parley in a part of Lagos by experts showed that a fertilizer plant can be sited in some of the refineries t generate 1,800 jobs. Warri Refinery can create 200,000 by hosting at least 20 plants that would use some of dormant assets in the place.
One such location is said to be capable of generating 600,000 jobs. Kaduna Refinery is expected to generate 10,000 jobs. “Fertilizer plants can come in with 1,800 from plant itself”.
Giving a breakdown how the jobs would be created, the expert said in tables and graphs that transporters would be between 6,845 and 8,645; warehouses would create 7000 to 15,645 jobs; village promoters would be from 53,550 to 266,474; while farmers would create huge number of jobs.
Giving additional gains of co-location, Adeleye’s report mentioned how to share existing facilities, reduce capital expenditure (CAPEX) and operating expenditure (OPEX), save huge wasting facilities, see to establishment of at least 20 petrochemical plants from the Refineries, boost the chemical industry, create over 10 carbon black plants, etc.
The report shows that the NLNG can change fuel source from ethane, utilise the extracted ethane, can create $2 billion per year from this change, can create 200,000 jobs from this, create 20 petrochemical plants can spring up from there, and create plants that make hair sprays, pipes, etc.
Charles Majomi, a gas expert, told BusinessDay in reaction that the significance of the discovery was that the plan would create de-risked factors because the existing assets would remove the risk impediments that make new plants risky.
He said the expected investment would be more credible, time to establish a new plant would be shorter and create about 2 million jobs in less than a decade, just by enacting a policy without the FG spending any dime.
Explaining further on why the gas expert team settled for co-location scheme, Majomi said the high concept came because Nigeria faced catastrophe from lack of jobs. He said Nigeria needed to create 60 million jobs in the next decade going by population growth rate confirmed by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and the World Bank. “Government is not doing anything, is being docile, is not serious about adding value to resources because they get rent from crude.
He talked about the evils of ‘state capture’ which he said prevents the elite from taking action. “This is the road to disaster; unending government actions such as ESCRAVOS pipeline, East West pipeline, etc, which do not get done but everybody rather takes advantage of the lacuna created”.
The report makes a proposition thus: “Co-location as the best strategy. The absence of enabling infrastructural facilities is why nothing is happening in this country. Since government will not create infrastructure enough for industrialisation to start, the solution is to allow existing government-owned assets such as refineries to co-host gas plants and other petrochemical plants to fast-track the production and create jobs.”
In his paper, made available to BusinessDay also, Louis Brown Ogbeifun of African Initiative for Transparency, Accountability and Responsible Leadership (AfriTal) described Co-location concept as a practice which promotes optimisation through one or more plants sharing mature pre-existing infrastructure rather than building their own or waiting for a third party to do so.
“This concept is laudable and the strategy could encourage and promote increased Gas-Based Industrialisation (GBI) investments by the private sector; create a vibrant value chain, provide employment, substantially increase government’s revenue and the potential for reducing host community conflict in Niger Delta.”
The report by experts also tried to address issues of host communities and brought in the research work of Zibima Tubodenyefa of the Niger Delta University (NDU) called the MCRIA (Macro Conflict Risk Impact Assessment). It is a bankable system of community engagement that removes all the issues that cause flares in host communities. The system identifies the crisis entrepreneurs that often fuel crisis and cause exodus of investors.
