By YANGE IKYAA
The increased investments by Coleman Wires and Cables into its current portfolios in Nigeria to $70 million is good and may help feed oil and gas projects, particularly offshore developments.
This is because the company is highest producer of cables in the country, inclusive of marine cables that are used in machinery that are needed in shallow water and deep water of offshore oil and gas production operations.
Findings by Valuechain indicate that series of accelerated investments by the company have placed Nigeria in the fifth position globally in terms of cable production capacity.
In its bid to create employment opportunities and enhance its backward integration strategy, Coleman Cables grew its investments from $40 million to $700 million. The company also called on Nigerians to look inward by investing in the country to improve the country’s Gross Domestic Product, GDP.
“Our current expansion project is over $70 million; previous expansion and work has been relatively over $40million. We have invested over $100 million in the last few years. Those investments are big,” said Mr. George Onafowokan, the managing director, Coleman Wires and Cables, during the 60th anniversary celebration of Licensed Electrical Contractors Association of Nigeria, LECAN, in Lagos at the weekend.
According to him, “we invested $28 million in high voltage cable in 2014, and it made Nigeria the fifth country in the world, we are still the fifth and such investment is not easy to come about. We need to focus our investment in the country; we need to focus more on local direct investment. Nigeria runs companies that generation can take on and do better.”
Onafowokan said his company is currently making efforts in fighting the importation of electrical cable and their adulteration by making prices affordable.
His words: “We have capacity to feed Nigerians need, Coleman would always make cable affordable in Nigeria, we are not interested in importing, we are fighting import and adulteration by making our price cheaper and better than the import.
“We are not cheaper because we are not reducing quality, we have the highest quality. Ours is a volume thing, if people are producing 100 core today, Colman produces 50 thousand cores in eight hours. Technically, that is an average of N10 thousand per pack. We are crashing prices of power cables in Nigeria and we are making house wire cable affordable.”