Indorama calls on Nigerian government to set up petrochemical authority

28-Nov-11

Indorama has called on the Nigerian federal government to hinge its industrialisation drive on the petrochemical industry. Speaking at the recent Rivers Investors’ Forum in Port Harcourt, the MD/CEO of Indorama EPCL, new owners of Eleme Petrochemicals Ltd. -Manish Mundra, called for the immediate setting up of what he called the Nigerian Petrochemicals Industry Authority (NPCIA) to drive the development of the sector and regulate the industry, now that many new entrants are itching to get into the sector. Mundra observed that the recent wave of investments coming into the petrochemicals industry, including the proposed $6billion project said to be the largest in Africa, by both the NNPC and a Saudi Arabian conglomerate, Xenel, planned for 2015 , has made it imperative for government to do the needed. Furthermore, there are two proposed fertilizer plants by the federal government, through the NNPC to which US$4 billion is being invested, with Indian partners (Nararjuna) each with 1.3 mln tpa and five discrete blending plants to be located across the country. Mundra explained that, there was an urgent need for government to move fast in pushing its growth through the petrochemicals sub-sector of the hydrocarbon industry, as he said Nigeria had no reason to linger behind countries such as Singapore that had no raw petrochemical stock. Currently, Indorama EPCL is building a US$2 bln fertilizer plant and ethanol plants at its present location, as part of an expansion project to exploit the industry further, in view of its conviction that the petrochemical industry in Nigeria was large enough to accommodate many more ventures to meet the rising global demand. The government has been urged to institute a framework to regulate the sector and drive the processes with an authority to act as a one-stop shop for all clearances.