The recent revival by a consortium of Emirati and Chinese investors of the long delayed Gas Revolution Industrial Project (GRIP) located in Ogidigben, Delta State is such a huge breakthrough for the Nigerian economy, which has gone largely unnoticed.
GRIP, also known as the Ogidigben gas city project was initially conceived as a $20 billion project and started off on January 2014 with preliminary civil works, including bush clearing, dredging and sand-filling. President Goodluck Jonathan performed the groundbreaking ceremony on Wednesday, March 25, 2015, after much delay. Phase one of the project as initially conceived entailed establishing the backbone of the project, which included the power plant, the water treatment plant, the port, the residential houses that will support the project and the gas processing facility. At the completion of Phase one, Phase two would have kicked in, which encompassed the petrochemicals, fertilizer and methanol plants, among others. From there, the project would have continued until the overall goals of the gas city project, which was conceived to be the largest in sub-Saharan Africa, were fully realized. The project was to occupy 27,000 hectares of land.
However, the project encountered delays primarily due to host community issues, largely inter ethnic conflicts and tension between the Ijaw and Itsekiri communities about who controls the land and benefits from the project, and even what name the project site was to be called, which created insecurity and disrupted access to the project site. But there is also the political or geopolitical dimension about the level of commitment of the Buhari Administration, which in any case was only possible because of insufficient commitment by the host communities themselves; and also because the entire Niger Delta states and people could not see the larger picture of the huge benefits of the GRIP project to exert collective pressure on the host communities to sheathe their swords for the larger benefits to the Niger Delta and the nation at large.
To be fair the Administration, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo visited the Niger Delta over the gas city project and held meetings with various stakeholders in February 2017 at a time when he was the Acting President. He also held a meeting at the State House with the consortium of investors, including GSE&C of South Korea, the China Development Bank, Power China and several other investors from the United Arab Emirates. Additional efforts were made by the Buhari Administration in its second term. In particular, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, reconstituted a steering committee headed by himself in October 2022 and a technical working group to revive the project. But at the end of the day nothing seemed to have happened. However, it is difficult to assess and unfair to just dismiss the possible impact of the continued effort of working committees the Administration set up at various times to explore the feasibility of reviving the project.
A project of a similar size, the Dangote oil refinery and petrochemical complex in Lekki Peninsula, Lagos, which is a combination of oil refining and the processing of natural gas into fertilizers and petrochemical products, was conceived at about the same time as the Ogidigben project and has been completed and is up and running in Lagos with huge impact on the Nigerian economy and beyond. The reasons why the Dangote project is located in Lagos are the very reasons the project at Ogidigben experienced delays for many years. What this means is that it would have been significantly cheaper for the Dangote project to have been cited in the Niger Delta close to crude oil and gas supplies, but it was more expedient for it to be cited in Lagos due to security and host community issues in the Niger Delta.
The current effort to revive the project started early in 2025 with the signing of an agreement between Alpha Grip Management Company (AGMC), a subsidiary of UAE-based Alpha Group, with China National Chemical Engineering International Corporation Ltd. (CNCEC) on January 15, 2025 at CNCEC headquarters in China and was witnessed by Hon. Joseph Tegbe, Director General of the Nigeria-China Strategic Partnership (NCSP), on behalf of the Nigerian government. This breakthrough benefited from the 2024 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which President Tinubu attended. It is worthy to note that AGMC President Sheikh Mohamed Bayorh after thanking their Chinese partners who are providing the financing, also commended President Tinubu, stating that the partnership was a direct product of the President’s economic reforms which have made Nigeria more appealing as an investment destination. The background roles of the Minister of State Gas, Rt.
Hon. Ekperikpe Ekpo and the leadership of the Nigeria National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) under its former Group CEO, Mallam Mele Kolo Kyari also need to be acknowledged and commended.
At $24 billion, the project will be the single largest development project in Nigeria so far. The time lines for the completion of the project are not yet out. It is however designed to use a minimum of 500 million standard cubic feet of gas and serve as a hub for gas-based industries upon completion. It is going to be a true game changer in the utilisation of the enormous proven gas reserves of Nigeria and in its impact on the economy and livelihoods of the people of the Niger Delta and in its overall impact on the entire Nigerian economy. The project is expected to generate about 250,000 direct and indirect jobs.
The key lesson to learn from the revival of the long-abandoned Gas Revolution Industrial Project (GRIP) in Ogidigben Delta State is the critical role of visionary leadership at the highest political level so that the nation does not lose out on ambitious and highly beneficial development projects. The Nigerian gas sector in particular has such huge potential for investment both from local and foreign investors. Nigeria should take a cue from how the Gulf States and oil and gas bearing Middle East countries have so effectively developed their oil and gas resources for the benefits of their economies and peoples.
The breakthrough Nigeria has finally achieved in the take off of the long awaited Ogidigben gas city project should serve as an impetus to develop other equally ambitious gas projects for local utilisation and for exports.
• Mr. Igbinoba is Team Lead/CEO at ProServe Options Consulting, Lagos
