$100m Lee Engineering’s New Plant In Nigeria To Serve Africa’s Industrial Needs
A new $100 million fabrication plant in Warri, Delta State, Nigeria, seeks to cater to the industrial needs of multinational oil and gas companies in the country and Africa at large.
The newly established plant by Lee Engineering and Construction Company will produce “high pressure vessels, heat exchangers, gas-heat exchangers, water bath heaters, glycol, skits, scrubbers, process modules, tanks and flare systems as well as carry out maintenance on existing pressure/process vessels and its components”
The company’s Chairman and Managing Director, Dr. Leemon Ikpea, said of the fabrication plant’s vision: “To build an indigenous world-class manufacturing and fabrication workshop that will serve the industrial needs of Nigeria and Africa, especially in the oil and gas, and power sector.”
Ikpea said the new feat by Lee Engineering and Construction company was previously only thinkable by industry giants such as Shell, Mobile and Total.
The Hardvard Business School graduate said his motivation to establish the plant was born out of the desire to contribute his quota to the oil and gas sector and also to “tap into the local content drive of the Federal Government.”
As part of Lee Engineering’s efforts to support the promotion of local content in the country, the company has sponsored 50 technicians and engineers to the Netherlands for training, said Ikpea, adding that the company intends to do more once its newly established plant becomes fully operational.
He said “If you look around the oil and gas sector, most production are done outside the shores of this country and if we fold our hands and wait for government’s foreign friends and partners to transfer technology to this country, I don’t see that happening, considering the market situation. If they transfer technology to you, the question to ask will be, who will be buying from them? So they will be reluctant to do that. Our mission is to produce high quality, reliable and durable products through competent workforce and best technology within regulatory laws. We intend to change the existing orientation of clients procuring similar components abroad with scarce hard currency and, in the process, boost national economy and reduce procurement lead time”.
According to him “we decided to key into the local content policy of government, which was enacted into law in 2010. We want government to give more power to the Nigerian Local Content Management Board to ensure that Nigerians fully participate in any investment, expansion and Greenfields to be established in many parts of this country. It is from there that our people will learn, build capacity, learn on the job, and also the government will save half of what is meant to originally go to foreign companies”.
The businessman said he was “optimistic that Mr. President will do us the honour by coming to commission the project”.
Speaking further, Ikpea said his European partners immediately bought into the idea when he first discussed the establishment of the fabrication plant with them: “they keyed into it immediately. They said this is what Nigeria needs to help boost the oil and gas sector. We have been in partnership with VDNKDI of Netherlands in the last 10 years and it’s been smooth all this while.”
He added that, “We are targeting to export to other countries in Africa and the rest of the world. There are refineries in Angola and some West African countries. From there we will expand to the Middle East and to other parts of the world. But the journey of a thousand miles begins with a step and that is what we have done”.
