The Chadeco Group comprises 14 subsidiaries ranging from fully integrated energy solutions to mining and real estate. Its core business, however, is oil and gas. It supplies crude oil and petroleum products to the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) – currently the only refinery in Ghana. But Chadeco has ambitious designs to capture a sizeable percentage of the petroleum products market; it plans to sell petroleum directly to the OMC’s, to mining companies, and to servicing companies involved in exploration and production activities. As part of its highly evolved business strategy, Chadeco intends to obtain a Bulk Distributors Company (BDC) as well as Petroleum Product Export licences to enable it distribute and export petroleum in-country, and to the Sahelian countries, notably, Niger, and the landlocked territories of Burkina Faso, and Mali.
“Investors should see us as the potential market leader in oil and gas. And as the best destination for investment,” says Prince Charles Dedjoe, an IT technologist, successful entrepreneur and CEO of Chadeco.
| “Investors should see us as the potential market leader in oil and gas. And as the best destination for investment.” Prince Charles dedjoe, CEO of Chadeco |
Prince Charles Dedjoe explains: “We are new, so we can dine together. You are not dining with the devil, rather with an angel.”
Approximately $8bn in investment is being sought. He cites the involvement, and beneficial effect, of the Government’s ‘Ghana Investment Promotion Centre’ (GIPC), designed specifically to look after the interests of foreign companies and investors. He further emphasises that there are very attractive tax incentives available: “You can register your company with the Free Zone Board so you do not have to pay tax for 10 years.” He continues: “Another advantage is that the bank that will receive the money will be one of Chadeco’s subsidiaries; overseas companies and individual entrepreneurs can invest in and have direct control of that bank. We want to provide added value for the supply chain.”
The Chadeco oil and gas division is structured in four parts – Chadeco Oil and Gas Resources Ltd (for the exploration of oil and gas); Chadeco Refinery (which has already obtained 1,500 acres of land to build a refinery which will produce “a minimum of 200,000 barrels per day”); Chadeco Petroleum Warehousing Ltd (under whose auspices it is planned to build 500,000 cubic metres capacity storage on the same site as the refinery); and the Chadeco Trading Business: “Our goal was to create synergy right from the production, through to the refinery, then to the storage and on to transportation. Such synergy makes for sustainable competitiveness, and is also much more attractive to the investor who wants to see strategic planning in place before putting their money down.’’
Perhaps predictably, Prince Charles has his eyes on the Nigerian market: the country is home to 150 million people and, as he says, they have “recurring problems” with electricity. “They import a lot because their refineries are not working to full capacity; the biggest market for our new refinery would be Nigeria.’’ Mr. Ato Ampiah, Acting Managing Director of TOR concurs wholeheartedly: “Ghana is a stable, strategically located country where new refineries could readily be set up, with oil taken in from all other countries in the region, in particular the landlocked ones, then sent out again. There is a large need to expand refineries within Ghana and enormous opportunities exist both on the domestic and international markets.”
0 COMMENTS