The Federal Government has pledged to spend $50 million on oil and gas park to attract companies to the facility as Nigeria’s first oil and gas opens doors for business.
The Park was built by the Nigerian Content Development & Monitoring Board (NCDMB).
The NCDMB Director of Corporate Communications, Engr Ginah O. Ginah, who disclosed this, Thursday, during a media tour of the park located in Odukpani, Cross River State, noted that, “this park is ready for habitation”.
He said the facility started 10 years ago. “We have already advertised for interested manufacturers and are presently going through applications to see those who are qualified”.
Ginah noted that all needed facilities have been provided to make the place conducive for the manufacturers, which include manufacturing hall, security, roads, 24-hour power supply, banking hall, restaurant, and state-of-the-art ICT facilities.
Others include fire service, water treatment plant, mini parks for accommodation, and free land for those who wish to build their own structures.
“All these are things that increase cost of production, so this park is going to crash the cost of production”, Ginah said of the facility located on 25 hectares of land.
He also disclosed that several other of such parks are under construction across the Niger Delta as part of NCDMB’s efforts to significantly increase local content in the oil and gas industry and generally drive Nigeria’s industrialisation.
“We have taken Nigeria’s local content level from 5 per cent to 55 per cent. The industry spends about $20 billion a year, so you are talking of about $10 billion saved annually”, Engr Ginah said.
He stressed that NCDMB’s goal is to take the local content in the industry up to 70 per cent by 2027, and “the only way to achieve that is to ensure local manufacturing of components, which is why we are building these parks”.