The Ministry of Energy has begun community engagement for the acquisition of 20,000-acre plot of land for the Petroleum Hub to be situated at Bonyere in the Jomoro Municipality.

Technical Advisor for the proposed 12-year Petroleum Hub Development project, Dr. Eric Yeboah, says the hub is expected to attract about 60 billion worth of investment to Jomoro and its environs where the project is to be located.

Speaking to Citi News on the sidelines of the community engagement, Dr. Yeboah said they are committed to meeting all the compensation requirements to secure the 20,000 acres of land for the petroleum chemical-free zones project that would also serve the rest of Africa.

“The whole discussion started 18 months ago, close to two years when government conceived the idea of petroleum hub where a free zone enclave consisting of various uses along the petroleum value chain. They will be brought together here as a free zone enclave with all the incentives to attract private investment into this area. We expect about 60 billion worth of investment would be attracted over the life of this project. So the need to get the land was very critical from day one and so the conversation has been going on throughout. ”

“We are doing this engagement because surveyors are actually working in other communities accessing the land and accessing the crops to pave way for the payment of compensation, so this is another leg of conversation we are having for the past two years. We have to meet the people of Bonyere as part of the ongoing community engagement towards the acquisition of 20,000 acres of land in the Western Nzema area specifically Jomoro”, he said.

Dr. Yeboah further highlighted the details of the Petroleum Hub project.

“This project is being developed in three phases. Each phase is expected to take three to four years, within a period of twelve years. Under phase one, we are expecting to develop one refinery, one petrochemical plant to help with the processing of fertilizer and other related matters and also develop about a million tank farms so that as we process we store before we export. So phase one which technically was to start in 2018 when the master plan was approved, has delayed a bit for a reason.“

Source: Citibusinessnews.com