ORIENT PETROLEUM HAS COME TO STAY

Since its incorporation in 2001, Orient Petroleum Resources PLC has been silently but effectively working towards putting Anambra State in the elite league of oil producing states in Nigeria.

On August 30, the president and commander-in-chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces, Goodluck Jonathan, will be in Anambra State to commission and flag off projects in the state on the invitation of the governor, Peter Obi. Orient Petroleum is among the outfits to be commissioned.

In this exhaustive interview, the managing director and chief executive officer of Orient Petroleum, Engr Nnaemeka Nwawka, lays bare all the facts about the company and how prepared they are to receive the president. Excerpts.

A LOT OF PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HEARING ABOUT ORIENT PETROLEUM BUT QUITE A FEW ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT. SO CAN YOU USE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO EXPLAIN WHAT IT'S ALL ABOUT?

Orient Petroleum Resources is 100% Nigerian company which was set up to be able to harness hydro-carbon deposits which have been in Anambra Basin for many years, to harness the hydro-carbon deposits, to refine the hydro-carbons and to sell the refined products in the market, in the on-land market in Nigeria because you know that while you can buy petrol very cheaply in Port-Harcourt and Lagos, as you come in-land these products become very scarce.

So Orient decided to now take the crude oil from where it is being produced and refine it in-land and sell it in-land too to ease the shortage of refined products in the hinterland of Nigeria.

WHEN DID ORIENT START BUSINESS AND HOW HAS THE JOURNEY BEEN?

The company was incorporated in 2001 and then it applied for the refinery licences in 2002 when the federal government threw open the refining business to independent companies. You know it used to be a monopoly before 2002. The refining business was a monopoly of NNPC just like NEPA before they threw it open to private generators. So in the same way, Obasanjo's government in 2002 threw it open to independent refining companies and Orient was one of 65 companies that applied at that time and ours was the first one to be approved and we had the licence to establish. It was given to us in May 2002 to establish a refinery and since then we've been working to establish a refinery.

In the process of establishing a refinery we had to find a source of crude oil and then we went to the federal government and then they granted us the oil blocs which appeal to our refinery for us to develop the oil and refine it there which was our vision. So we got these oil blocs in 2005 and since then we've been shooting sites and developing the wells and what the president will be commissioning on the 30th of August is the first well which has been completed and is producing oil and the president will commission it and that's one of the first wells to produce oil to the refinery.

WHAT'S THE CAPACITY?
The refinery we're setting up is 55, 000 barrels per day. The first module of it which will be installed as from 3 months from now is 20, 000 barrels per day. The first well that's producing is about 2, 000 barrels per day so we have to get some more wells to fill the 20, 000 barrels per day capacity. So as we're installing the refinery we'll be drilling other wells and hooking them up so that before the refinery is finished we would have hooked up enough wells to produce 20, 000 barrels per day to feed the refinery.

WHERE EXACTLY IS ORIENT REFINERY LOCATED?
Our head office is in Awka. The area of our oil blocs is about 2, 158 square kilometres. Two thirds of the oil blocs; the total area is 2, 158 square kilometres. The bulk of it is in Anambra North senatorial zone in parts of Oyi, Ayamelum, Anambra East and West; four local government areas and then part of it goes into Enugu State – Uzo Uwani Local Government; Kogi State; Delta in Oshimili Local Government Area; a part of it is in Edo State as well. Oil blocs cover this but the refinery itself is located at Nsugbe; at the boundary between Nsugbe and Umuleri. There we have about 320 hectares which is already being developed. We've levelled it and we're ready to put refinery on top of it.

HOW HAS THE ANAMBRA STATE GOVERNMENT BEEN SUPPORTIVE OF THIS PROJECT?

Very supportive. It's one of the biggest investors in Orient Petroleum. It has invested a lot of money. Rivers State government is also an investor, Kogi State; so is Enugu. We are cosmopolitan; there are many investors from the south west of Nigeria - from Lagos, from the north. We have many people who have invested in the company. Apart from investing, the Anambra State government has been passionate about succeeding with industrialisation; that is really the key. The state government sees that to move forward you have to industrialise the state so it won't be depending on federal allocation. But if you create industries you are actually improving the state's economy; you will be creating so many well paid jobs and then there will spin-offs. If you have Orient refinery there will be other people who will be making products which will use the refined products as input for their own. Example, if we have gas we will be supplying it to people who need heat like burnt bricks or bakery but even industries around Onitsha and Nnewi; we pipe gas to them, so instead of using diesel they will now use natural gas which is cleaner burning than diesel.

So you don't have to be servicing your generator; changing the nozzles and all that because the oil is the one that plugs the nozzle but if you're using gas, it is a very clean burning fuel. So the spin-off of the oil refinery is enormous. We will be supplying gas to even as far as 9th Mile where the Nigeria Breweries has already approached us to supply them gas. We will be supplying gas to Nkalagu cement. So you can see this entire area will benefit from the presence of Orient Petroleum and the governor, Mr. Peter Obi, realises this and has been pushing for this. He realises that once this takes off there will be a lot of spin-off. It will create entrepreneurial opportunities for industries and commercial outfits to latch on to this to develop.

THERE'S TALK ABOUT AN AIRPORT PROJECT THERE. CAN YOU ELUCIDATE ON THAT?

Yes, there will be an airport. I spoke about Orient Petroleum Resources PLC being a holding company. The holding company has four subsidiaries. One subsidiary is the refining of petro-chemical component which is going to operate the refinery; the second is the one that is about producing oil and gas; that is called the exploration and production subsidiary. Then we have a subsidiary which is gas and power which is supplying gas to Nkalagu cement, to breweries at 9th Mile, and possibly to this SABmiller Brewery in Onitsha. The final one is the infrastructure and services which will look after the airport and other infrastructure like housing and so on which will support the operations of the other three subsidiaries.

So the vision was that Orient will be a vertically integrated company. It derives its own raw materials, sells its products; provides its services. The airport was supposed to provide an outlet for aviation kerosene which is one of the products of the refinery. So planes will land there and load with aviation kerosene. That's the aviation fuel (ATK). So there will be a pipeline that takes aviation kero there; the aircraft will load and we can be selling aviation kero to Kano International Airport, to Lagos, even to Ghana and other places right from that point. So the airport itself is to provide an outlet for aviation kero and also it will provide a quick source of spares. Let's say you need something in the refinery, you fly it in. So we do have licence from the federal government to set up an international cargo airport to fly in materials there. This airport is located in about 1,200 hectares of land in Ifite Umuleri. It's already surveyed and work will start very soon now that we have income from the oil production.

SO HOW SOON DO YOU RECKON THE AIRPORT WILL BE READY?

The airport will be constructed in phases just like the refinery. The first phase will be the runway and the cargo shed. Those ones could be done in 18 months and then the next phase will be the second runway so that it will be like Abuja which is getting the second runway. Lagos already has two runways. So we're looking far ahead. These runways are of international standard; the ICAO standard (International Civil Aviation Authority).

They're long enough to take a Boeing 747 cargo. The biggest jumbo jet can land in the airport; that's why it's so long; 1,300 hectares and the runway is about 4 kilometres. It's longer than Enugu and Asaba airports. It's again futuristic to make sure that in 20 years to come it will still be serving us.

SO IT WILL BE STRICTLY A CARGO AIRPORT AND NOT FOR COMMERCIAL PURPOSES?

Not quite. The licence is for international cargo and domestic passengers. So you can have passengers who are inside Nigeria. It's not international passenger; it can't take off from there and fly to London; no, but I can bring in materials from outside the country and fly materials out of the country; that's cargo, but the airport itself can operate as a domestic airport. It will have a runway and a terminal building. The one in Enugu is international passenger airport but this one is international cargo.

DOES THE STATE HAVE ANY SHARE IN THE PROFITS?
The state government has three percent share.
ANY CONSTRAINTS SO FAR?
Our major constraint has been the weakness of Nigerian banks to be able to fund this enterprise. All the money which has been spent here is equity; contributions by shareholders because the banks are so weak that they're not able to lend the kind of money which we require to build a refinery or even build an airport. The liquid cash that the banks have are so small so the main constraint for any industrialisation in Nigeria is actually the lending power of the Nigerian banks. They cannot support this scale of activity. So the project has been slowed down because of this. For instance I had to sell my houses to raise my own personal money to invest in this (Orient). In a civilised society I can mortgage my house; they give me cash and I do this for the benefit of everyone but now I have to squeeze myself, the directors have to squeeze themselves and bring in money and that's why it's so slow.

So if we had all the money this time would have been history about five years ago.

WHO ARE THE DIRECTORS?
The chairman of the company is Chief Emeka Anyaoku, former secretary-general of Anambra State. The vice chairman is Dr Alex Ekwueme, vice president of Nigeria. I'm the MD and chief executive officer. We have other directors; we have Engineer Sunny Okoye who is the executive director; we have Engineer Ikemefuna who's also executive director of the holding company.

IN TERMS OF PRODUCTION CAPACITY, HOW DO YOU RATE ORIENT AGAINST OTHER REFINERIES?

There four NNPC refineries: two in Port Harcourt, one in Warri and one in Kaduna. The name plate capacity which is what they could do when they were set up was 445, 000 barrels per day. So at the moment they're doing less than 20 percent of that; they're doing less than 80, 000 barrels per day and that's between the four of them; so maybe 20, 000 barrels each. So at 20, 000 barrels per day of ours we should be about equal of each of them at their present capacity. We're at par. 20, 000 barrels per day is good; that's what they used to have in Ghana and Sierra-Leone, in Ivory Coast.

The federal government is thinking of buying six of those small refineries. It was announced the federal government would spend 4.5 billion dollars to buy six of refineries like ours. These are comparable sizes for refineries. These are modular. Modular is that you can carry in small bits and set up so that you don't have to stay on site and weld all the vessels but if you have beyond 55, 000 barrels per day then you have to weld every tower on site and that takes five years to complete.

AFTER THE PRESIDENT'S VISIT WHAT NEXT? SHOULD WE EXPECT FULL PRODUCTION?

After his visit we will have full production of oil and gas. The gas that will come, we will make LPG out of it. As I told you we already have outlets for electricity; we have outlets for gas; we have outlets for the oil. In the mean time we will be drilling more oil wells such that by the time that our refinery is ready in 12 months time we will have enough oil to produce 20, 000 barrels per day into the refinery and then we refine. The products we will refine will be petrol, diesel, aviation kerosene and LPG; four products which are very scarce in Nigeria. You know planes land in Nigeria and go to Ghana to refuel because there is no aviation kero and the one we have here is imported from outside.

Mazi Odera
Brandishing truth ,like a lethal weapon.
Truth is our standard