Investment in the Oku-Iboku Pulp and Paper (OKIPP) Limited is a testimony of our belief in the Nigerian economy. It is also a deliberate strategic initiative of Negris Group to diversify its portfolio of investment.

 Early in 2008, Negris was one of the four companies that bidded for the acquisition of the assets of Nigerian Newsprint Manufacturing Company, Oku Iboku, Akwa Ibom State, which was in liquidation. Negris Group won the bid after a keenly contested bidding process.

The company was eventually handed the assets of the newsprint company in an epoch making event at the company’s premises, in Oku Iboku, on August 12, 2008. This was after Negris had met all the requirements among which is the payment of the 32.5 million dollars bid price paid to the Federal Government, through the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the government privatization agency.

With an installed capacity of 100,000 metric tonnes, NNMC was conceived to bring an end to the country’s dependence on imported newsprint. However, seven years after it was established in 1986, it stopped production largely due to lack of finance and poor management. The takeover is expected to bring a new lease of life to the facility and by extension the newsprint market.

Determined to ensure immediate attainment of this, the management of Negris has commissioned foreign technical experts to rehabilitate the plant for possible commencement of operation in the shortest possible time.

BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

•To become the dominant newsprint and uncoated mechanical papers supplier in Nigeria and ECOWAS.

•To achieve 60% of domestic market share in the first year of operation which is 65,000 metric tonnes estimated demand; and 16% of the 400,000 metric tonnes estimated West Africa demand. 

•To achieve 85% capacity utilization in the second year, which will translate to 85,000 metric tonnes.

•To capture 40% of the total West African market in the fourth year. 

•To become the supplier of first choice to the majority of publishing houses and users of uncoated graphical papers in Nigeria, the rest of West Africa and Beyond.