Siaka MOMOH
Bitumen production, planned to kick off in Ondo State in 2020, was stalled by the Covid-19 pandemic which ravaged countries across the globe, Femi Akarakiri, Senior Special Assistant on Energy and Mineral Resources, to the Governor of Ondo State Lucky Aiyedatiwa told Enterprisethrob in an exclusive interview.
According to him, “The initial bitumen production was originally planned to start in 2020, but the pandemic caused delays and setbacks for many companies involved.
“As a result of post pandemic, things had to restart from scratch. Now, we’ve secured two entities that began exploration end of last year. Right now, we are moving from exploration into the mining lease process. Once you’ve got that lease from Mining Cadastral Office, and exploration is complete, then actual mining can begin.”
Production won’t start until mining gets underway, he said.
Competition
Responding to the issue of competition bitumen will face in the market now that the Federal Government has endorsed the use of concrete pavement for road infrastructure in Nigeria, Femi Akarakiri said: “Both of them have their own applications. Federal government has adopted concrete pavement for their own roads, but even when the states, or should the states also follow suit, there still be kilometers, thousands of kilometers of road that will require asphalt for their own paving, and the bitumen will definitely find a role in that. Nevertheless, there will also be opportunity for bitumen export out of Nigeria.”
Ancillary industries
Beyond mining, we are looking at haulage. It is going to create a huge haulage industry.First, the mined materials are going to be moved, to the processing area, and the products will need to be moved somewhere else – to the end users across the country.
So it is going to be huge. Again, in the coming years, we are going to build a port – the Port of Ondo because what we have in Ondo will not be fully consumed in Nigeria; we will need to export. It will feed into the deep sea port operation. Of course, we will now need to look into secondary jobs. People working will need housing. This means that houses will have to be built. Schools will need to be built. With truck going everywhere, it means that service stations have to come up. So this is the kind of thing that the bitumen economy will generate.
When we look at it, I and some of my colleagues, when we talk about it, we say the bitumen industry can rival the oil and gas industry. And imagine that those who are in the oil and gas industry may be 70,000. Like in oil and gas, another set of 70,000 jobs will be created directly from bitumen exploitation and then more from the derivatives that will also come from it. And by the time those companies start operating; banks will want to come around them. So there will be showers of jobs.
The country’s revenue will soar. Import substitution will come into play. We import everything today. It means we will be saving a lot of our forex. We will create jobs locally. Second, I believe we will be able to produce bitumen at a much cheaper rate than the imported one today. It means that with the same amount of money, you can get more bitumen; you can do more roads at the same cost. And with more roads, you make life easier for our people. And that is just on one aspect of bitumen usage.
There are 64 other uses that are derived from bitumen. You can get synthetic diesel, felt, paint mixtures, depending on the nature. You can get sulphur, you can get oil but since we have oil already, we may not go into that. So there will be ancillary industries that will spring up. Bitumen deposit in Ondo State can be found in Irele, Ilubirin, Kajola and part of Okitipupa also.
Olokola free trade zone
And on the proposed Olokola free trade zone, Akarakiri explained Ondo State is pleased that Dangote is back to lead its development. “The state is working to ensure that the project is well-accepted in Ondo State and that the local communities are taken care of. This is the State’s role, to create a hospitable and welcoming environment for the project, while the specific development details will be handled by the Dangote group.”
For Femi Akarakiri, there’s no issue with Ogun State’s participation in the free trade zone as it’s a jointly owned initiative between Ondo and Ogun. Both states will share the benefits, so it’s a mutual arrangement.
