Mary Agidi

Eleven private firms have indicated interest to partner with Ondo State Bitumen Exploration and Exploitation Company (BEECON) through the State Development and Investment Agency, ONDIPA.

These investors, including financial institutions were therefore engaged yesterday by the state in Akure, for their presentations on what they have to render for the successful mining of the product and way forward.

In his welcome address, the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Development and Investment, who doubles as Director of Business Development and Investment Management at ONDIPA, Mr. Femi Akarakiri said bitumen exploration will provide not less than 30,000 direct jobs in the state.

According to him, bitumen was discovered in the state in year 1904 but nothing has been done on it due to the expensive cost of exploration which the government cannot invest on alone, hence the reason for inviting investors to partner the state on the mining.

He explained that the BEECON Partnership Engagement programme is aimed at fashioning out modalities to mine bitumen product and to make the process transparent.

“The purpose of this programme is to bring partners to Ondo state to partner with BEECON, we try as much as possible to discourage government from going into this type of investment to allow private organizations invest on bitumen exploration, we have the licences and we are calling on private sectors to partner with us, to bring their finances and expertises to explore the product.

“We want to ensure that the communities where bitumen are located can be developed by the time companies come in, they will need so many resources that other human beings will be able to provide, our communities will be the beneficiaries and our youths will have jobs and at the end of the day we will have bitumen to run our infrastructure in the country.

Akarakiri noted that exportation of bitumen will strengthen the naira, save the government foreign exchange, help to improve on roads infrastructure, and also earns the state more funds.

“Because today our country spends millions to import bitumen, if we are able to produce it locally it means we save on the foreign exchange that we are spending”, he said.

He assured that the host communities will be the beneficiaries of the project while imploring youths to be ready educationally to explore the opportunities that the operation will bring to the State.

Speaking on the likable side effects of the mining operation on the health of the people in the area, Akarakiri explained that, “If there is no bitumen at your backyard, there is no need to relocate.

“We want to make sure that the host communities benefits from the resource, we are formulating host communities engagement plan, we call them bitumen communities so that they will have benefits from the resource, but people should not expect that those communities will suddenly become Dubai”.

“I want to implore our youths, equip yourselves for the opportunities to come, get yourself ready educationally and with artisans skills because these are what will be called upon”.

According to him, the state will start engaging the investors one after the other to know the cost of exploration depending on the technology they are bringing in.

“Bitumen is a costly business to extract but we believe the market is there, resource is there and the technology is going to be solved and money will flow into it”, he assured.

Some of the investors present at the event for presentations included, Energy&Mineral Resources Limited, BML energy, CRCC construction group, Globaloilsands, Liquefied Resources (LR) USA LTD.

Others are Zenilum Company LTD, CCC Snirand Technologies LTD, and Drichels Technologies.