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Emmanuel Jime, the managing director of the Nigeria Export Processing Zone Authority (NEPZA) has commended the management of the Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics Base (LADOL), an industrial Free Trade Zone (FTZ), for the efforts put into the development of the Lagos-based industrial center.
“From what I have seen so far, if I’m asked to give marks to what I saw here today, I will say that LADOL has an ‘A’,” said the newly appointed NEPZA boss during his last week visit to LADOL base in Lagos.
He also described LADOL facility as the best example of ‘how a Free Zone should be in Nigeria’. “The essence of this visit was to engage stakeholders and to enable us put mechanism for working together, in place.
“In effort to develop the economy, this administration has decided that there is going to be a paradigm shift in government focus to industralise the country. This means that we need to create industrial centers of excellence.
Jime further disclosed that the Federal Government has mandated NEPZA to create six industrial centers nationwide. “It’s our job to deliver on this mandate but there is no way we can deliver on it without collaborating stakeholders and facilities like LADOL.”
Noting that the visit was also to understand the challenges facing facilities like LADOL, he urged the management of LADOL to list out their challenges for both parties to put heads together and determine the possible way forward.
Speaking earlier, Amy Jadesimi, who took the management of NEPZA round the integration yard of the $3.8 billion Egina Floating, Production, Supply and Offloading (FPSO) oil production platform, said that LADOL commenced operations with the vision to industrialise Nigeria and make her the hub for West Africa.
“To that, we need to create a platform to show how we can sustainably, economically industrialise and make Nigeria the manufacturing hub for not just the West Africa but to the world because by 2050, Nigeria will be the third most populous country in the world.
“By that time, we will need to be creating hundreds of millions of jobs so that we can take over from China from being the manufacturing hub, particularly since we have higher educated populations that are familiar with all kinds of technology,” she said.
According to her, LADOL has created over 2,000 direct jobs from the shipyard and 4,000 indirect jobs, and by estimation, the facility when fully operational, will create 50,000 direct and indirect jobs. “When we started the FPSO project, we do not have a shipyard to build the ship hull but we can bring the hull from Korea and integrate here. However, now that we have the facility, we will ensure that greater part of next project would be done in-country.
Jadesimi, who stated that the nation’s oil and gas logistics sector needs to build more capacity across the country for greater part of the next ship building project to be fabricated locally, said that currently all the facilities in Nigeria is not enough to build one FPSO. “With our facility, one can build anywhere in Nigeria and bring to LADOL to integrate.”
Listing some of the upcoming investments in the zone, the LADOL boss said that discussion is ongoing to commence the building of new NEPZA head office that will also house other government agencies in the zone, to enable them handle up to 2,000 people per day, estimated to be in the yard by the end of the year when the FPSO will arrive.
“We are also building a gas fired power plant. We have completed the design and sand filled the area while construction is about to take off. Right now, we have a 96-room hotel but we are planning to build a-500 room hotel accommodation complex with three different standards of accommodation. We are not building workers camp but a place where people need to feel comfortable,” she added.
LADOL, which focused on logistics support and rig repair in the first few years of its operations, has created a one-stop-shop facility. The company has moved on to develop the second phase of the facility, which is the building of the shipyard given the advantage of having a location that enables the largest vessel in the world to berth.
