The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the acquisition of a 20 per cent minority stake by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in the Dangote Petroleum and Petro-Chemical Refinery.
Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, made this known to newsmen after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice-president Yemi Osinbajo on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa.
Sylva said the acquisition was for $2.76 billion, adding that the Council also approved contracts for the rehabilitation of Warri and Kaduna refineries.
At the CBN conversion rate of N413/$, the amount comes to over N1.13988 trillion.
He said: “The FEC, today, approved the award of contract for the rehabilitation of Warri and Kaduna Refineries at the combined total sum of $1.5 billion– $897.67 million for Warri Refinery and $586.9 million for Kaduna Refinery.
“The Executive Council also approved the acquisition of 20 per cent minority stakes by the NNPC in the Dangote Petroleum and Petro-Chemical Refineries for $2.76 billion.
“The completion of the rehabilitation of the Warri and Kaduna Refineries is going to be in three phases.
“The first phase is within 21 months; in 23 months, phase 2 will be completed and in 33 months, the full rehabilitation will be completed.
“Work has already commenced in Port Harcourt; already the first 15 per cent of the contract sum has been paid to the contractor and contractor has fully mobilized to site.”
He said that the council also discussed the need to give periodic updates on the projects.
According to him, there will soon be an inspection of work in the Port Harcourt Refinery.
In a related development, the FEC has approved $11.174 billion for the construction of a standard-gauge coastal railway from Lagos to Calabar.
Taken in naira terms, the amount runs to N4.5 trillion.
It also approved the award of two contracts to the tune of N6.2 billion and N2.31 billion, respectively, for the construction of two power substations in Jigawa and Akwa Ibom states.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the FEC meeting approved the memo for the ratification of the president’s approval for the award of the contract for the Lagos-Calabar coastal standard-gauge railway.
Mohammed explained that the rail project is important to the nation’s coastal economy, which is why $11.174 billion is earmarked for it with a completion period of six years.
“This is a very old project, which we inherited. Under the former administration, and approval was given, but nothing was done, but today, the council has approved to commence the Lagos-Calabar coastal route.
“This particular route is very important because, after the Lagos-Kano route, this Lagos-Calabar coastal route actually will link all the coastal cities in the country.
“The proposed route alignment is to go from Lagos to Shagamu, Shagamu to Ijebu-Ode, Ijebu-Ode to Ore, Ore to Benin City, Benin to Sapele, Sapele to Warri, Warri to Yenagoa, Yenagoa to Port Harcourt, Port Harcourt to Aba, Aba to Uyo, Uyo to Calabar, Calabar to Akamkpa to Ikom, to Obudu Ranch, with a branch line from Benin City to Asaba, Onitsha Bridge and then Port Harcourt to Onne Deep Seaport”, he said.
The Minister also stressed that the commitment of the present administration to expanding and consolidating on the rail projects across the country informed FEC’s approval of the funds for work to commence immediately on the Kano-Jibia rail and the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri route.
Speaking also, Minister of Power, Sale Mamman, disclosed that FEC approved two projects for his ministry, including the construction of 2 by 60 MVA 132 33 substations at Gagarawa, Jigawa State, in favour of Messrs Power Control and Appliances Limited in the sum of N154,212,396.05.
“The second one is the award of the contract for the engineering, procurement and construction of 2 by 30 MVA 132 33 substations at Ibiono Ibom, Akwa Ibom State in favour of Messrs YEMEC West Africa Limited for US$6.2 offshore plus N1.8 billion onshore”, he said.
On his part, the Minister of State for Education, Chukwuemeka Nwajiuba stated, “Today, the Federal Ministry of Education presented two memos. The first one dealt with the ratification of convention Nigeria had already acceded to which seeks to regularise the recognition of certificates and diplomats all across Africa.”
The second memo, according to him, dealt with the award of contract for the building of two blocks of social science complexes at Adamawa State University in Mubi for a total sum of N1,103,000,000, which is a TETFUND allocation that emerged from 2017 through 2021.
