Gov. Godwin Obaseki of Edo has assured that the Fertilizer Blending Plant in the state would become functional before the end of June, this year.
The governor gave the assurance after he inspected facilities and progress of work at the Plant at Auchi, Etsako-West Local Government Area of the state on Thursday.
Obaseki said that with the progress of work and facilities on ground, the plant could be test run on June 10, after which full production would begin.
He said that about 100 to 120 direct and indirect workers would be employed by the plant when it became fully operational.
“I am quite impressed with the progress of work here because if you compared the situation now to what we met about two and half months ago, when we came here first, you can see that there is a significant difference.
“We have been able to get the technical partners under the Federal Government’s fertilizer programme to start work here and they have made some investment to revamp the plant.
“The equipment have been tested and manufacturers were brought to fix the faulty parts.
“They are also constructing a new line to meet up with the specification of the federal government fertilizer programme,’’ he said.
The governor said that security had been beefed up at the location, while the office complex had been fixed, to ensure a proper take-off for the facility.
He said that plans were being made with the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) to draw a dedicated 33KVA line to the plant, while a standby 500 KVA generating set had been refurbished as an alternative source of power for the plant.
He added that plans were also being made with the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to increase power supply to the blending plant and other mining facilities in the locality.
In his remarks, the general manager of the Technical Company managing the fertilizer plant, Mr Ayodele Ejaoye, said that the blending plant had a capacity to produce about 55.000 metric tons of fertilizer annually.
Ejaoye said that the company intended to start commercial fertilizer production from June 20, this year.
According to him, “it is a 7-ton per hour capacity, that means, if I run the plant for 22 hours, I can produce 154 tons per day’’. (NAN)