Eleme Indorama Petrochemicals Company Limited plans an expansion of $2.2bn to become the largest Petrochemicals hub in Africa by 2020, its Managing Director, Manish Mundra has disclosed in Abuja on Tuesday, July 27, 2016.
He was speaking during an investigative hearing on the privatisation process and performance of the company.
Mundra said the $2.2 billion investment will go into the company’s 2nd train of fertilizer project and polymer plant expansion.
He said that with the revival of the company and the implementation of “these projects, Nigeria has taken first mover advantage in West and Southern African countries in terms of import of technologies, employment generation and sustainable living standards as well as enhanced economic activity in the country”.
Mundra said that by the first quarter (Q1) of 2016, the company had paid $710million dividends to the Federal Government, Rivers State Government, host communities and the Nigerian staff and that this was expected to rise to $1.09bn by 2020.
He said the company’s tax remittances up to December 2015 were $380 million, which would rise to $838 million by 2020 and that the company has earned the country $11.8bn in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) up to 2015, which is expected to peak at $30.6bn by 2020.
According to him, the realization of a fertilizer project within 36 months in the country has created a benchmark for others to follow worldwide.
Despite the milestones, the MD said the company was faced with some challenges and called on the Committee to intervene to ameliorate them. He listed them as; Inability to secure more feedstock for the fertilizer plant; lack of gas supply for the second line of the fertilizer plant, Infrastructural support; and Reclamation of the land taken over by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
