Minister reveals that Nigeria road deficit is up to 70%

Olamilekan Adegbite, the Minister of Mines and Steel Development, has disclosed during a press briefing on the concession of the delineated Nigerian bitumen blocks, that Nigeria has about 70 per cent road infrastructure deficit as he buttressed upon the need for the country to boost local bitumen production.

The Minister revealed that it would be easier and cheaper to construct roads in the country if the local production of bitumen comes to being and this will result to ‘import substitution, local content development and increased value addition to the mining industry, job creation, and more revenue for the government.’

His statement said, “Nigeria currently has 200,000 km of road networks with only 60,000 km worth of road paved. This considerable road infrastructure deficit presents an inherent demand for bitumen.

Hence, the development of Bitumen will lead to import substitution, local content development, and increased value addition of the mining industry to the domestic economy, thereby creating jobs and generating revenue for the government.”

He stated that, the country would begin the production of bitumen locally as it has appointed a transaction advisor, PricewaterhouseCoopers, to oversee the process.

The minister also revealed that a number of international and local investors had expressed interest in bidding for the bitumen blocks.

The minister further said that the country’s bitumen deposit is ranked sixth in the world in terms of reserve size, adding that the country is endowed with a bitumen reserve size of 42.74 billion metric tonnes.