In line with the Federal Government’s initiative on gas to power, Greenville, an oil and gas company has inaugurated its first phase of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant with a daily capacity of 2,250 tons in Rumuji, River State.
The plant, which is at a tune of between $450 million and $500 million dollars worth of investment as stated by the company’s Chairman, Eddy van den Broeke, would be generating about 750 million tons per year.
Van den Broeke, who described the capacity as small compared to Bonny noted that it is relevant on the general scale and should be considered a revolution in the industry especially with the environment of location in the River State.

According to him, his company instead of transporting LNG through pipelines directly to power plants would adopt the usage of road transportation via trucks which are LNG powered, hence the target mostly is to areas without pipelines.
He however noted that though the costs of transport through pipelines are always cheaper, but cost through LNG powered trucks would be economical as well.
Meanwhile, the Greenville boss, expressed his disappointment on government’s attitude to foreign investors saying, “when you bring your money to invest in Nigeria you are on your own because no body helps you, not the ministries or anyone and this is a real problem.”
The project he explained was delayed by two years because of challenges in finance majorly and the harsh business environment and that is an indicator that foreign investments have not been promoted most especially in an industry as oil and gas.
“We have invested between 450 to 500 million dollars; this is including the cost of building infrastructures like filling stations and storages, making the cost of the whole value chain to be on us and which should not be so,” he added.
Their decision to continue with the second phase of the project he said would lie on how government welcomes this first one and the friendliness of the environment as well as views of other investors.
The company’s Managing Director, Ritu Sahajwalla said the project was targeted to the northern zone of the country where pipelines doesn’t exist, through the truck system the company seeks to introduce.
The truck transportation she explained is like a mobile phone were trucks take the LNG directly to the end user to produce power which translates that one truck can produce five megawatt of power.
She regretted that there has been lots of displacement happening from north to south, which the company has seen in the course of its two years LNG marketing.
We have come across many companies that moved from north to south because of this unequilibrium, a textile mill, she cited which has the requirement of eight megawatt, would have put the factory in kaduna but they are looking for a place in Lekki owing to the same challenge.
Sahajwalla stated that lots of million dollars would be saved on import duties alone, if the government keyed into the LNG market to replace AGO.
“We have driven it up to this moment and we urge Nigerians to support the course, it is a tough environment here, and now we fill we are in the corner so we need support because it is a catalyst project that can bring ripple effects,” she added.