Kribi multibillion FCFA bitumen plant raises hope for better roads.

While defending the 100 billion FCFA investment project at the just ended session of Parliament, the Minister of Finance, Louis Paul Motaze, unveiled recent strides that are playing up towards the eventual and successful delivery of the project.

Between 2022 and 2023, the Minister said, Euro Petroleum Consultants, EPC, a British advisory firm specialising in oil, gas, and petrochemical projects, and Austria’s Pörner Group, a global leader in bitumen oxidation technology, joined the project. 

The Kribi bitumen plant, paired with a mini oil refinery with a capacity of 10,000 barrels per day, will have an annual production capacity of 250,000 tons. The project is expected to create 300-400 direct jobs and over 1,000 indirect jobs.

According to the CEO of All Bitumen Cameroon Plc, the plant's production level will eliminate Cameroon’s bitumen imports (officially estimated at 50,000 tons per year), reducing the country's trade deficit by approximately 300 billion FCFA.

Local bitumen production is also expected to cut road infrastructure costs by 30% (currently among the highest in Africa) and to open new markets in Nigeria, Chad, Gabon, and the Democratic Republic of Congo, as identified in a market study by Argus.

Minister Motaze was optimistic that if the bitumen plant goes into full operation, asphalting of roads would reach 11,300 kilometres by 2027. 

He stressed that between 2023 and 2027, government aims to add 1,415 km of paved roads, increasing the total length of paved roads from 9,885 km in 2023 (less than 9% of the entire network) to 11,300 km by 2027. 

This plan is outlined in the Medium-Term Economic and Budgetary Programming Document prepared by the Ministry of Finance, preceding the budget orientation debate held on July 6, in the National Assembly.

To achieve this goal, which aligns with the 2020-2030 National Development Strategy, SND30, the country must build a bitumen production plant.

"Achieving this objective requires supporting the construction of a bitumen production plant," the Ministry of Finance document states. 

The government has already shown interest in building a bitumen plant in the Kribi industrial-port area, located in the southern coastal region of the country.

Ahmadou Oumarou, CEO of All Bitumen Plc, the Cameroonian company behind the project, in March 2023, told the media that: "Our project has been included in the list of priority projects of the 2020-2030 National Development Strategy (SND30). On February 21, 2023, the Ministry of Environment and Nature Protection signed the environmental compliance certificate for the project. In December 2022, the Ministry of Industry approved the hazard studies and emergency plan”. 

“We have received the comfort letter from the Kribi Port Authority for the allocation of the 60-hectare project site. Regarding financing, we have mandated a local bank, which has received numerous expressions of interest. We have several financing options, with a preference for local funding," Ahmadou added. 

The Kribi bitumen plant, with a total investment of not less than 100 billion FCFA, will be built on a 60-hectare site in the deep-water port's industrial zone. The project is slated to begin construction this year, according to initial projections.

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue No:3165 of Thursday July 10, 2024