Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Gas), Rt. Hon. Ekperikpe Ekpo on Friday met with a delegation of promoters and top officials of the Brass Petrochemical and Gas Project in Bayelsa State led by its Managing Director, Chief Ben Okoye and the Chief Gas and Power Investment Officer of NNPC Ltd., Dr. Salihu Jamari.
At the meeting, the Minister restated the commitment of the Federal Government in supporting private sector investments geared at unlocking the gas potential of the country for the overall benefit of the economy and citizens
Ekpo tasked the management of gas producer, SPDC JV on the need to work closely with promoters of the Brass Petrochemical and Gas Project to ensure smooth supply of gas for the project in line with the aspiration of President Bola Tinubu on availability of feedstocks to drive gas based investments and industrialisation. The SPDC representative assured the Minister that they are fully committed to the project and are committed to fulfilling the gas supply obligations as a priority project.
“The feeling of Mr. President is that anything that has to do with gas production and commercialisation and industrialisation should be encouraged and given priority; I will like the two sectors to be more cordial,” he said.
Managing Director of the Brass Methanol project, Chief Ben Okoye informed the Minister that the team had unbundled the gas and methanol components of the project to operate as separate projects.
He assured that once approval is gotten from the Board of Brass Petrochemical, things would kickstart by March this year and that everything about the project would be completed by Q1 2027.
He said the gas pipelines have been designed to be expanded from Train one to Train 3 and even more on gas availability. He said though the starting capacity for the Gas Plant would be 340million standard cubic feet (mmscfd), but the pipeline is designed could to carry 980mmscf.
Former Minister of Information and Communications, Mr. Frank Nweke Jnr who is also on the board of the Brass Petrochemical project called for stronger political leadership from the government to see the project through given the inherent benefits of additional revenue generation to government coffers, forex availability and job creation to citizens of Nigeria.
