Beijing: Senior provincial officials from Nigeria this week met once again with China's Cosco in a bid to secure financing for what is likely to be one of the largest port projects in all of west Africa.
An agreement between the project consortium and a Chinese government-owned construction and engineering company to begin a feasibility study has been signed this week. The container terminal alone will likely cost $1bn, and the whole project as much as $12bn over a 10,000 hectare site. It would bea key oil and gas site with the likes of Chevron, BG Group and Shell establishing an LNG terminal there. The port project includes a free trade zone and is located on the borders of Ondo and Ogun states.
The Olokola port would have "capacity for haulage, transhipment, roll on-roll off, as well as bulk cargo", according to a statement released by the Ogun State governor in late December.
At 16m depth alongside Olokola would be the deepest port in the whole of western Africa.
Nigeria is China's third largest trading partner in Africa with statistics for 2005 showing a healthy $2bn in annual trade. [04/01/08]
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