24 July 2014, Lagos – Technova Africa Group, an indigenous conglomerate of seven wholly owned subsidiaries, which is currently constructing a 200,000MTPA Pipe Mill and Coating facility at Ologbo, Edo State, will on Friday host the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Ernest Nwapa, and the Group Chief Executive Officer of Technova Africa Group, Norbert Oleah, on an oversight visit to Technova Industrial Park at Ologbo.
The Nigeria Content Development Board has selected this project as one of its major initiatives to rapidly increase local content in the oil and gas industry.
This facility, according to the company in a statement made available to THISDAY by Technova Africa Group Limited Project Engineer, Ifeoluwa Bolaji, will service the oil and gas industry in Nigeria and also help to drive the development of the local capacity in the country in line with the Nigerian Local Content policy.
“The Technova Industrial Park is strategically situated within a gas producing hub in Ologbo, which covers an area of approximately 200acres of land, with more than 100 metres of water front for a privately owned captive jetty to support the activities of the Park.
“The Industrial Park is going to be powered by a 10 Megawatts power plant with plans to ramp up output to 20MW as demand grows. It is expected to create over 3,500 direct and indirect jobs, with about 30 spin-off businesses,” the statement noted.
It stated that the park would be developed in phases, with initial phases built around the provision of services to major oil and gas projects, from Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) as well as other oil companies with support and partnership with SPDC and all other international oil companies in Nigeria.
“The Pipe Mill and Coating Facility is the anchor project for the industrial park which will house the steel city, as this is expected to create over 18,000 direct and indirect jobs when fully in operation. The steel city is aimed at catalysing Steel Product Engineering and Development for the Industrial development of Nigeria.
The second phase of the Steel City development will involve the setting up of a Steel Fabrication Yard, Spools Manufacturing Facility, an OCTG Manufacturing Facility and a Pipe Cutting and Threading Facility. Part of the plans of Technova Africa Group is to backward integrate into Raw Material Production in the form of Hot Rolled Coils and Flat Steel Sheets.
“Technova Industrial Park is designed to attract and accommodate other companies specialized in Structural Steel Manufacture, Flat Steel Sheets Manufacture to support the automobile Industry, Ship Building and other Steel related Industries.
“In each phase of the Industrial Park’s Development, Technova will actively attract other third party steel works companies to setup operations within the zone.
– This Day