The Federal Government has licensed about 190 oil and gas servicing companies to operate at the Onne Oil and Gas Free Zone in Rivers State, even as one of them; INTELS Nigeria Limited has accused Importers of underhand dealings.
The companies are presently operating in Onne with investment valued at over US$6.0Billion and supporting livelihood for over 204,000 persons in form of direct and indirect employment.
The Federal Government has licensed about 190 oil and gas servicing companies to operate at the Onne Oil and Gas Free Zone in Rivers State, even as one of them; INTELS Nigeria Limited has accused Importers of underhand dealings.
The companies are presently operating in Onne with investment valued at over US$6.0Billion and supporting livelihood for over 204,000 persons in form of direct and indirect employment.
Some of the companies currently operating in the zone includes: Brawal, West African Container Terminal (WACT) Deep offshore, ECOMARINE, AMS, INTELS, GE, FMC among others. Our correspondent however gathered that some of the companies given concession in the zone by the Nigerian Ports Authority are yet to develop their sites.
Commercial Services Manager of INTELS Nigeria Limited, Mr. Akintoye Akinpelu in a chat said that his company has been in the zone for 30 years and has carried out major investments.
“Our name is synonymous to Onne because when Onne was nowhere in the map, we brought it to the limelight, but it is not only INTELS that is here”
“When the free zone was started, it was the Onne Oil and Gas Free Zone dedicated to the Oil and gas industry knowing very well that the Niger Delta constitutes over 90 percent of the oil exploration and government earmarked Onne, Warri and Calabar as oil service centers to support oil and gas operations”
“Today in Onne, we don’t handle conventional cargoes like rice, cars or cement, the concession government gave to us is to handle oil and gas cargoes and that is what the ports are meant for, anyone working in Onne has the right to handle it, it is oil service centers. It is not the largest free zone in the world, it is the fasted and largest free zone dedicated to the oil and gas industry” Akinpelu stated.
Akinpelu noted that the dues for oil and gas cargoes is higher than conventional cargoes because what the concessionaires pay to government for handling oil and gas cargoes is higher than what other ports pay for handling conventional cargoes.
According to him, cargo dues for oil and gas are 5USD while others are 1.3dollars. He lamented that Nigerian importers bringing in oil pipes usually declare it as water pipes in order to avoid duty payments.
“Many Nigerian importers will import oil and Gas Pipes but the next thing you see on their manifest is water pipes, these are the things you see happening in the industry, but the way you handle oil and gas pipes is different from water pipes, it is a delicate cargo because it is going offshore”
Speaking on local content, Akinpelu said that 90% of the management staff in INTELS are Nigerians, noting that this was a total departure from what it used to be in the past.
“Before now it was a taboo in the industry to see Nigerians performing, everywhere you go it is all around experts”
“We have 190 companies investing into Onne, we have the likes of Tenaris, when they came into this country was 90 percent expatriate and 10 percent Nigeria, the same with FMC, GE these are companies based in the US and Europe, but now they are here in Nigeria in one location providing the same service”
“Whatever level of investment we have put in here is not our property, its government’s property, so when government is directing oil and gas cargoes to Onne it is not directing it to INTELS, it is to government ports” he said.
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