By Ndubuisi Micheal Obineme
The Oil and Gas Free Zones Authority (OGFZA) have been taking practical steps towards creating an enabling environment and attracting investments into Nigeria’s Oil & Gas Free Zones.
Mr. Umana Okon Umana CEO of OGFZA, who spoke to our correspondent, said that OGFZA has partnered with Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PwC) for investment advisory services.
Speaking further, Mr. Umana said: “We have also involved the Authority in reputable international activities all in a bid to competitively position us in the global market place of Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and benchmark us against other world class free zones across other regions of the world.”
“Our Oil & Gas free zones are strategically located near major on- shore, offshore, ultra-deep sea projects, with easy navigational access to the entire Sub-Saharan West African Region.
“We are of course excited to receive interests from developers who want to develop and operate any of our Greenfield zones on a long term concession period through a BOT Public-Private-Partnership model,” he said.
He further stressed that the challenges peculiar to Nigeria such as the impact on the annual budgeting exercise from the global shock in oil prices, drop in production due to pipeline vandalism and weakening of the Naira relative to the Dollar have increased cost of doing business in the industry and deterred investments in the Sector. But, the recent uptake in global oil prices is a welcome relief, which will make oil investments attractive again across board.
He said that some other challenges of the industry such as oil spills, gas flaring and environmental pollution are currently being addressed by the new petroleum policy, new gas policy and proposed establishment of modular refineries respectively.
He concluded that the intervention of the Federal Government to security threats on activities that involve oil exploration, production and distribution; has led to a marked improvement in oil and gas exploration and production in Nigeria.