The Federal Government through the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) is set to sell-off a total of 32 petroleum product storage facilities, otherwise called tank farms worth several billions of naira in Apapa Lagos, even as it has started wooing interested members of the public for bids.
Reliable sources at some of the depots in Apapa last week confirmed to Shipping Position Daily that the tank farms included: Zenon 1 and 2, Acorn, Aquitane, among others.
Already, one of the tank farms; Acorn Petroleum is reported to have attracted potential buyers because it is strategically located along the Oshodi-Apapa expressway.
AMCON, an agency created by the Federal Government to absorb bad loans from commercial banks had last week in an advertorial, invited interested members of the public to submit bids for the purchase of the tank farms located in Ibafon area of Apapa Lagos.
A source at the tank farms told our correspondent that the distressed tank farms have been on lease for a long time, but their original owners were not performing in their loans.
"AMCON wants to sell Acorn tank farm; it is situated between Total and Integrated tank farm, Zenon 1, and Imad (formerly Zenon 2) as well as Aquitaine. The reason why they want to sell these tank farms is because, while AMCON took over the depots, people were allowed to take it under lease, but the performance of these leases is not living up to expectation"
“In the course of recovering the bad debts, some of the parties are calling for a sell and share arrangement and collect their balance"
"Acorn is already out for sale and people are already pricing", our source stated.
He however said that the 32 tank farms offered for sale are scattered all over the country and not only in Apapa.
A top official of Zenon confirmed that the firm and AMCON had reached an agreement on the transfer of the assets to the corporation.
Reports have also indicated that AMCON has entered into asset transfer agreements with most of the oil companies.
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