White Dove Shipping Company Limited (WDSCL), a marine support and logistics services company, said it planned to develop the capacity to handle about 150,000 barrels per day (BPD) of crude oil in the next five years.
White Dove Shipping, a one-stop shop for the evacuation of crude oil from production to export, specialises in catering to the evacuation needs of local oil producers using alternative means in place of the pipeline, and it presently has the capacity to handle about 60,000bpd.
Speaking to newsmen during a recent online conversation, Chiemizie Ejinima, chief executive officer of White Dove Shipping Company Limited, said the company owns a fleet of vessels ranging from crude oil tankers, Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC), shuttle vessels, patrol boats, crew boat, Floating Storage and Offloading (FSO) among others.
Ejinima said that White Dove has storage vessels that enable production for oil companies, shuttle vessels that move crude from the storage vessel to the offshore terminal, medium range tankers, and VLCC that was converted to FSO.
Listing other fleets, he said, the firm has four medium-range tankers, a VLCC, security vessels that protect the tankers, bunker dumb boats, crew boats for crew changes, and supply boats.
“For us to have sufficient capacity to handle 150,000bpd of crude oil, we need to increase our fleets extensively. Now, we have one terminal and one VLCC but we need to increase that to up to three VLCC in the next five years to be able to handle 150,000bpd and cater to the internal and export need of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector,” he explained.
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Continuing, Ejinima said: “We plan to effectively cater to the evacuation needs of local producers. The oil and gas industry is currently dominated by international oil companies (IOCs) but gradually local players are coming into the sector. Companies like Seplat, Conoil, and others are taking their space in the oil and gas sector. These companies do not have access to pipelines that is where alternative evacuation using vessels comes in.”
According to him, the services provided by White Dove enable oil companies to get value for their investment while the government gets returns through royalty and taxation.
In addition, he said, White Dove, which has over 90 percent local workforce crewing the vessels including Nigerian Engineers, and management staff, wants to achieve close to 100 percent indigenisation of its workforce.
“We provide job and career opportunities to Nigerians and even cadets from the Maritime Academy of Nigeria. Though foreign shipping companies prefer to bring in expatriates, our philosophy is to develop Nigerians,” he said.
On the state of the Nigerian shipping industry, he said, Nigeria does not have a lot of indigenous players in the shipping business due to the capital-intensive nature of the business. He however called for more access to funding that is cheap and efficient to enable investment in ship acquisition.
BusinessDay understands that White Dove is one of the pioneers in the alternative crude oil evacuation which is a sub-sector of the oil and gas sector. It helps indigenous oil producers to account for the crude oil which they produce such that when a company produces 30,000 tons per day, the services provided by White Dove ensures the same volume is evacuated to the terminal for export.
By so doing, the company helps to eliminate the incidences of crude oil theft, which is predominant in Nigeria.
