In this report, ABA ADAH writes on the federal government’s effort to develop the rich bitumen reserves in the country
One critical milestone the Nigerian government is planning to achieve before the end of the year is to have empirical data of bitumen blocks in the country and auction them for investors to develop in the overall interest of the economy.
While playing host to the Australian high commissioner to Nigeria, John Donnelly, who was on a visit to the ministry recently, minister of mines and steel development Arc Olamilekan Adegbite said the auctioning would be done in the fourth quarter of the year.
Adegbite disclosed that the ministry was still gathering data on some of the bitumen fields and was edging close tocompletion. He noted that there were ample opportunities for investors in the local development of bitumen sector.
“A lot of people are interested in bitumen which is coming from both local and foreign investors. However, we are still acquiring data in some of the fields and once the data is in we will go for auctioning in the third quarter,” he said adding that PWC, was advising the ministry on its bitumen development road map.
The minister had in the first quarter of 2020 inaugurated a nine-man committee on the development of bitumen resources in the country. He disclosed during the inauguration that Nigeria has an estimated reserve of about 42.74 billion metric tons of bitumen, mostly located in Ogun, Ondo, Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa states, adding that the reserves had remained largely untapped for several years.
Speaking during an interview recently, the chairman of the committee, Engr Obadiah Simon Nkom, assured that the committee under his watch, and with the support of members drawn from relevant agencies and organisations, would deliver on its mandate by ensuring that more geoscience data on bitumen reserves in the country are gathered and the fourth quarter auctioning of blocks are achieved.
We have set up a work plan for ourselves and set up a timeline. However you know that this is not the first time. We are working towards developing the sector and we hope to offer the bitumen blocks for bidding by the fourth quarter. “We also took a decision to see how we can improve on the deposit data that we have so we decided to obtain more geosciences data about the bitumen; he explained.
Highlighting the importance of the mineral to the overall economic growth, the acting director, mines inspectorate in the ministry and member of the committee, Frank Udom, said the abundant bitumen deposits when developed would earn the country a lot of foreign exchange, given that Africa is a developing continent where a lot of road construction would be happening, making it a ready market for the commodity.
“When we develop bitumen, the West African market will be coming to buy from us earning us foreign exchange. Africa is a developing continent which means that a lot of road construction will be going on so it can serve as a market for our bitumen.
“Bitumen is a strategic mineral which would fast track the development of the country with regards to road construction. It would also attract foreign investment into the country as many are willing to join the bidding process for bitumen,” he said.
Throwing more light on the imperative of generating enough geoscience data, DG, Nigerian Geological Survey Agency, Engr Abdulrazak Garba said the essence of having bankable geoscience information is to give confidence to prospective investors and make the business more attractive.
“Basically, the investors need to have baseline information on the occurrence status of Bitumen before expressing interest in the commodity for bidding. The effort of the committee is to make sure the necessary dataset is in place before the bidding rounds commences. This is meant to guide the committee in delineating areas that have the commodity for bidding,”he explained.
LEADERSHIP reports that bitumen was first discovered in Nigeria in 1900 and active exploration began in 1905.
Deposits can be found mainly in South West Nigeria, specifically in Lagos, Ondo and Ogun states and Edo, Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa states in South-South Nigeria.
(Leadership)
