Access Bank Plc has driven Techno Oil Limited and CAKASA Nigeria Limited to ink a new agreement on Friday for the construction of an automated Liquefied Petroleum Gas terminal.
The 12,000 metric tonnes capacity project is expected to be the largest of its type in West Africa.
Though the parties failed to reveal the cost of the project, the facility will be seated at the Kirikiri coastline, Apapa in Lagos. Analysts say the scheme will boost LPG storage holding in Nigeria.
Explaining the new deal during the signing ceremony the Managing Director of Techno Gas and Power, Mr. Collins Onyeama, said the project would be completed in November, 2017.
He said that the project would be handled by CAKASA in partnership with a leading European firm that had handled similar facilities in Nigeria and other African countries.
According to him, the Techno Oil Group was embarking on the project to boost the drive by the Federal Government to increase the consumption of LPG, currently standing at about 400,000 metric tonnes every year in Nigeria.
Onyeama added that suitability approval for the construction of the plant had been granted by the Department of Petroleum Resources and that necessary environmental impact assessments had also been carried out.
Techno Oil boss further expressed optimism that the facility would be a game-changer in getting more Nigerians and people in West Africa to embrace LPG for cleaner, safer and healthier environment.
The company’s LPG cylinder manufacturing plant being built in Lagos had also been slated for inauguration in February next year as the company would commence the installation of 50 units of digital LPG skids at some filling stations next month to make more Nigerians to have easier access to LPG plants.
He listed the challenges of the business to include poor awareness on the side of the safety, limited refilling plants and high cost of imported cylinders.
He called for a sustained national awareness programme to drive use of the LPG, saying “This will reduce the phobia and improve public awareness that LPG is clean, safe and affordable and also expose the danger inherent in long use of firewood and kerosene.”
In his remarks, the Managing Director of CAKASA, Mr. Yaro Balami, assured that his company had the capacity to build the plant, saying that more than 80 per cent of tank farms in Nigeria were built by CAKASA.
He said that the company had been in the business of building oil and gas facilities since the past 42 years, praising Techno Oil for embarking on the project.
Techno Oil opened shop 18 years ago, operating as a downstream company, marketing Esso blended lubricants.
