Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG) is looking for investors to build a US$1.5bn shipyard at Badagry, in an attempt to promote the West African country as a hub for maritime operations in the continent
Nigeria is the world’s eighth biggest crude producer and Africa’s top oil exporter but it does not have a drydock for maintaining and repairing large crude vessels, a major drawback for carriers sailing to the country, NLNG spokesperson Tony Okonedo told Reuters.
Only South Africa has such a facility in Africa, Okonedo added, which means that ships travel long distances for repairs from various parts of the continent.
“Samsung Heavy Industries and Hyundai Heavy Industries have both agreed to a US$30mn commitment towards the construction of the facility, which would be located near Lagos.
“It could potentially be used to transport the 2.5mn bpd crude business in Nigeria,” Okonedo noted.
The NLNG had organised a road show earlier this year to market the drydock project to investors, which included multi-national oil companies in Nigeria, with large exploration and upstream activities.
He said that NLNG, which is owned by Nigeria’s state-oil company NNPC, Shell, France’s Total and Italy’s Eni, was in discussions with a strategic investor for the project.
The construction of the dry dock will take up to 48 months for completion and would commence once all the funding was in place, the spokesperson revealed.
The company, which was set up more than two decades ago, has a capacity to produce 22mn metric tonnes of LNG a year. It obtains its gas supply from upstream oil companies and liquefies it for export.
