Stop the Rumour! Segun Adebutu Hasn’t Abandoned Mega Project
That business mogul, Segun Adebutu, shares a lot in common with his magnate father, Chief Kessington Adebutu, is stating the obvious. From business acumen and philanthropy, he is no doubt a chip off the old block.
Besides his investments in oil and gas and involvement in the gaming industry, younger
Adebutu’s vast business empire includes mining. He has a company which arguably ranks as one of Nigeria’s most endowed mining assets.
He also has a marine logistics firm reputed to be quietly amassing the largest fleet in subSaharan Africa and quietly executing several multimillion-dollar contracts across West Africa.
The younger Adebutu has truly done so well for himself to the admiration of his wealthy father who many believed has been his main backbone. As a billionaire on his own merit, Adebutu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Petrolex Oil & Gas Limited, excited many in December 2017, when he announced his company’s major and landmark multi-billion dollar oil city projects.
When Adebutu drew the high and mighty, including the then Nigeria’s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, to the sleepy, border town of Ibefun in Ogun State to unveil plans to build “the second largest refinery in sub-Saharan Africa and the largest petroleum product depot in Nigeria,” it was the first time he would be under the spotlight and outside the shadow of his multibillionaire father.
At that time, Osinbajo inaugurated Africa’s largest tank farm built by the young Adebutu’s indigenous integrated energy conglomerate. The tank farm is a 300 million-litre storage facility with 20 storage tanks.
But inaugurating the largest petroleum products depot was just the tip of the iceberg, as Adebutu intended to systematically turn Ibefun, particularly, the project axis, into one large energy estate that will be reckoned with as the biggest and best in Africa.
This, he hoped to do with other mega projects, such as the proposed 250,000 bpd oil refinery, a lube plant, a fertiliser plant, a gas processing facility and a power plant to power all the operations with an option to sell the excess to the national grid.
Not a few applauded the younger Adebutu for this audacious move in Nigeria’s troubled streams. But seven years down the line, his strategic and promising private investments have yet to sprout.