FG Seeks Investors For Bitumen Development
The Federal Government is seeking national and international investors interested in the development of the nation’s 42 billion barrels of Bitumen reserves.
Speaking at a virtual session organized by the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development in collaboration with PwC Nigeria, the Director General of the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency, Dr. Abdulrasaq Garbar, who provided geoscientific data and other information to guide potential investors, said the country holds the sixth largest reserves of Bitumen in the world.
The Director General of Mining Cadastre and the Chairman of Bitumen Committee, Engineer Obadiah Simon said: “Tremendous successes have been recorded but there are many more opportunities for improvement, particularly regarding the Bitumen resource. This has remained unexploited for years thereby creating a massive opportunity for domestic production of Bitumen in lieu of the country’s Bitumen importation,” he said.
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Also speaking at the session, the leader of the Mining Practice at PwC Nigeria, Cyril Azobu, explained the firm’s mandate on the Bitumen programme: “the scope of the PwC mandate is to ensure uniqueness and peculiarity of the exploration, development, and extraction.”
It will be recalled that the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development had in November 2021, appointed PwC as Transaction Adviser/Programme Manager to oversee the selection of bidders for the development of Nigeria’s defined Bitumen blocks through a competitive tender procedure.
Bitumen, the hydrocarbons obtained naturally or as a residue from petroleum distillation, is used largely for road surfacing and roofing. The global market is estimated to be around 110bn dollars.
