Federal Government, on Monday, disclosed concessioning of bitumen blocks to prospective local and international companies in order to reduce importation of the commodity.

This was made known by Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Olamilekan Adegbite, during a press conference on ‘Concession of the Delineated Nigerian Bitumen Blocks’.

Adegbite, who pointed out that with the huge deposits of bitumen in the country, which ranks Nigeria as sixth largest in terms of deposit of the commodity in the world, there is no other time than now to harness this nature’s gift to Nigeria.

He said it was for the benefit of Nigerians and boosting road infrastructure, conserving forex used for importation of the commodity for road construction, exporting it for revenue generation, and creating jobs for the teeming youth.

He also recalled that Nigeria does not import barite anymore since October 2021 after the Ministry launched local production of the commodity in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and also assured investors and Nigerians that the bitumen process will also record similar success.

He said with local production coming on soon, Bitumen as a crucial component of asphalt in road construction will bridge the gap of roads paved, and added that the development of Bitumen will lead to import substitution, local content development and increased value addition of the mining sector.

He said: “Indeed, Mr. President gave us a mandate to galvanize the sector as a medium of diversifying the economy from oil, creating jobs and generating revenue for government.

“In fulfillment of this mandate, we are here seeking to concession the nation’s bitumen blocks.”

Meanwhile, the Minister also announced PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC, as Transactional Advisers of the bitumen project.

“And we have brought in an international company of repute, Messer PricewaterhouseCoopers, PwC, now they are the transactional adviser on this project.

“This is to take it to a logical conclusion that would guarantee that those who coming are going to be active players and of course will enhance bitumen production in Nigeria,” he said.

Also, one of the members of the Bitumen Steering Committee, Director General, Nigerian Geological Survey Agency, NGSA, Abdulrazaq Garba, said bitumen deposits extend to Lagos, Ogun, Ondo and Edo States.

The Partner/Mining Leader, PwC, Cyril Azobu, while gave an overview of Bitumen programme and transaction.

He made it known that the company received a letter from the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development in 2021 to act as Transaction Advisers assure for the concessioning of the delineated bitumen blocks to potential investors.

Vanguard