Downstream Operators Flood Lekki Free Trade Zone

•    As Sifax Joins Tank Farm business
There are indications that the profitable tank farm activities and the attendant traffic logjams in and around Apapa, Lagos will soon reduce as many of the downstream operators of Nigerian petroleum sector are now diverting attention to the fast growing Lekki Free Trade Zone (LFTZ) to construct tank farms.

•    As Sifax Joins Tank Farm business
There are indications that the profitable tank farm activities and the attendant traffic logjams in and around Apapa, Lagos will soon reduce as many of the downstream operators of Nigerian petroleum sector are now diverting attention to the fast growing Lekki Free Trade Zone (LFTZ) to construct tank farms.
Shipping Position Daily has also gathered from industry sources that foremost petroleum marketing company, Forte Oil has also entered into an agreement with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to build a refinery at the zone.
A source confirmed to our correspondent that the sand filling of the earmarked space for the refinery as well as other construction works have already began.
Shipping Position Daily also learnt in Lagos last week that frontline indigenous company; Sifax Group is already clamouring to get a piece of the ‘tank farm action’ as the company is already at concluding stages of securing its license from the Federal Government to construct a modern petroleum tank farm at the Lekki Free Trade Zone.
Even though Sifax Oil and Gas; a subsidiary of Sifax Group is currently doing well in the trading of refined petroleum products, there are indications that another branch of the conglomerate; Sifax petrochemical is already in process.
The company disclosed last week that, “the project is already in process, it is part of the project that we are looking at; we have the tank farm business which we have almost got through with the approval”.
Apart from these, our correspondent also learnt that a Nigerian firm, Pinnacle Oil and Gas Limited, has already undertaken to build a $250 million Single Point Mooring (SPM) facility at the Lekki Free Zone.
According to a joint memorandum of understanding (MoU) entered into by Pinnacle Oil and Gas, Lekki Free Trade Zone Company (LFTZC) Limited and the China Petroleum Technology and Development Corporation (CPTDC), Pinnacle is expected to complete the $250 million SPM facility with over 11 kilometers of subsea and on shore pipeline network by December 2013 when many of the tank farms proposed for the Zone would have also been completed.
The Single Point Mooring facility at Lekki Free Zone is targeted towards enabling petroleum cargo vessels of various capacities to anchor and discharge products via the network of undersea and onshore pipelines to respective tank farms within the zone.