The Bank of Industry (BoI) has created a $500bn funding arrangement with the Bank of China (BOC) to finance the importation of gas flare equipment into the country.
This was disclosed by panelists at the recent multilogues session of the Nigerian Gas Association (NGA). According to them, the funding the arrangement requires the intending borrowers to advance about 25 percent of their funding needs and imports their equipment from China.
A communiqué issued at the end of the confab signed by the president of NGA, Ed Ubong, said similar arrangements with the US Exim Bank are also available for players that want to import their flare capture equipment from the United States.
The panelists agreed that cost-reflective pricing mechanism, favorable fiscal regime, ease of repatriation of dividend/ capital, stable exchange rate, and national industrial policy stability are critical conditions for spurring equity and loan financing in the local Gas market.
They advocated the need for the adjustment of royalties on gas supplied and consumed in the domestic environment to encourage more supplies that catalyze more significant development in the overall domestic economy, just as they demanded non-discriminatory pricing mechanisms that offer suppliers equal opportunity for returns on investments and cost-reflective tariff structure across the gas value chain.
