The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Kogi State government Tuesday executed a Memorandum of Understanding for the development of fuel-ethanol processing plant that would produce 84 million litres of bio-fuel per year.
Dr. Maikanti Baru NNPC Group Managing Director said the project would yield a cane mill and a raw and refined sugar plant of 126,000 tonnes annually.
The Bagasse co-generation plant would also generate 64 Megawatts (mw) of power, while the plant would also include a carbon dioxide recovery and bottling plant with capacity of 2,000 tonnes per year.
Dr. Baru said the signing of the MoU would lead to the formation of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to steer the future activities of the proposed project, stressing that the project is central to the attainment of economic development on the basis of value-added investment portfolios, environmental sustainability, climate change mitigation, wealth and job creation to reduce the poverty index, while balancing the ecosystem, and maintenance of national and global security.
“NNPC is committed to implementing Nigeria’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement aimed at combating global Climate Change, to which President Muhammadu Buhari signed, and deposited Nigeria’s ‘Instrument of Ratification’ to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in May 2017,” Dr Baru said, adding that the project would earn Nigeria Carbon credits from Clean Development Mechanism Projects activities.