The $1 billion Pinnacle Oil and Gas FZE Terminal in Lekki, Lagos, will address inefficiencies in the downstream sector of the economy, Peter Mbah, the chief executive officer of the company, said on Wednesday.
The facility will be commissioned by President Muhammadu Buhari this weekend.
The terminal, according to Mbah, is an ultra-modern purpose-built products intake, storage and off-take facility conceptualised to revolutionise the Nigerian downstream oil and gas industry. It will enable the direct delivery of petroleum products from large vessels which would otherwise have been unable to berth anywhere on the Nigerian coastline.
Peter Mbah, chief executive officer of Pinnacle, who disclosed this at a press briefing, said the terminal was a resilient infrastructure capable of importing and exporting through the same pipeline.
“What we built is actually resilient infrastructure because it has a bi-directional capability to import and export products from the same pipeline and the same facilities in the open sea,” Mbah said.
He noted that Nigeria may become a net exporter of refined petroleum products with the investments going on in the space.
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“We are also one of those that believe that over time, with the investment we are seeing in the refining space, Nigeria may become a net exporter of refined petroleum products which is why we are fortunate to have built our facility very close to a big refinery.”
Speaking about Pinnacle operations, Mbah stated that the company operates majorly on the business-to-business (B2B) space rather than business-to-customer (B2C) and that is why they have fewer stations around.
“We are today the leaders of the market in terms of volume and market share, with a market share of 23 percent. In the downstream space, you have companies that are buyers towards B2C and those that are buyers towards B2B. In our own space, we refer to ourselves as master suppliers. May not see a number of stations bearing Pinnacle but we are the suppliers of those products. We are more interested in the B2B space. We deal with B2B rather than B2C. It’s a deliberate strategy,” he added.
Mbah stated that the decision to build the disruptive facilities was informed by the company’s willingness to address the inefficiencies in the downstream sector, which had led to numerous issues in receiving products from mother vessels using daughter vessels with cost implications.
