Poverty is expected to drop in the Niger Delta as unemployed youths in the region become the major beneficiaries of the $3.6 billion Integrated Gas Processing and Methanol Plant in Odioma, Brass Island, Bayelsa with the capacity to create about 35,000 jobs from constructíon stage to completion in 2024.
When this happens, peace is also expected in the region where unemployment has made able-bodied restive and pushing them into crime.
On Friday in Abuja, the Final Investment Decision (FID) on the project was signed and this brings hope of about 5,000 permanent employment in addition to 30,000 employment opportunities during the construction stage of the project.
Mele Kyari pledged that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) would do everything to ensure the timeout completion of the $3.6 billion methanol plant projected to be the largest in Africa and the first in Nigeria.
The project is being executed by the Brass Fertilizer and Petrochemical Company Limited (BFPCL), an incorporated entity owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), DSV Engineering, and the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).
In 2017, BFPCL secured an Initialled Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (GSPA) with SPDC JV for a 25-year supply of 270MMscf/d rich gas to the project. The integrated project is estimated to cost about $3.6 billion and is expected to deliver 10,000TPD Methanol products to the export and local markets.
Findings have shown that unemployment level is very high in the region where it has sparked widespread violence, increase in social vices, increase in a number of dependents, and an increase in poverty amongst others.
The oil-producing states of the Niger Delta Region have some of the highest levels of youth unemployment in Nigeria. For instance, it is about 38.4 percent in Bayelsa and 27.9 per cent in Rivers compared to the national average of 21.1 per cent according to a World Bank report
It is also discovered that unemployment fueled political violence in Bayelsa State and its environs and it is expected that huge projects like the Brass Methanol plant will shift reliance on politicians for livelihood and reduce poverty.
A Niger Delta Region Youth Assessment Research by the United Nations Development Program Foundation (UNDP) notes that despite vast oil resources, the Delta region is characterised by extremely high poverty levels where 70 percent of its youth between the ages of 15 and 24 are unemployed and accounts for 40 percent, far exceeding the national average youth employment rate of 14 percent .
President Muhammadu Buhari in July 2020, approved the development of the Brass Gas Hub with the sole aim of aggregating and monetizing all stranded gas in the Brass area which amounts to over 14 trillion cubic feet.
Speaking at the Friday event, Kyari, lauded the current efforts by the Federal Government to provide value for Nigeria’s gas resources, describing the FID as one of the most significant in recent times.
The project was in tandem with the earlier declaration of 2020 as the year of gas and 2021-2030 as the decade of gas by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources.
The BFPCL Board Chairman, who is also the NNPC Chief Operating Officer, Gas & Power, Engr. Usman Yusuf, said that a lump sum Turnkey Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract has been awarded to the China Tianchen Engineering Corporation (TCC) while TATA Consulting Engineers are providing project management consultancy for the delivery of the plant in 2024.
The Executive Vice-Chairman of BFPCL, Ben Okoye, said the signing of the FID was an affirmative vote and consent by the Board to construct the plant. with a production capacity of 10,000 tons per TPD (tpd), and the largest plant in Africa with a huge potential to provide gainful employment to many youths both at the construction and operational stages.
Okoye informed that based on lessons learnt from the historic checkered relationships between host communities and oil and gas companies, the project would allow for host communities to have equity shareholding participation to give them a sense of belonging.
Speaking also, the Minister of State Petroleum Resources and Alternate Chairman of the NNPC Board, Timipre Sylva, said the FID marked yet another milestone in the ongoing efforts to monetize and add value to the nation’s abundant natural gas endowments.
“Today we are witnessing the signing of the Final Investment Decision of Phase 1 of the Brass Gas Hub by the promoters of this laudable project. The project is expected to a have very significant economic impact on the country including but not limited to support gas-based based industries, revenue generation, import substitution for the methanol needs of the country that is currently 100 per cent imported, among others’’ the Minister said.
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