… to retain $14bn industry spend
…create 300,000 jobs
The next wave of Nigerian Content implementation has started and it targets in-country retention of $14bn out of the $20billion yearly industry spend and creation of 300,000 direct and indirect jobs.
Another key target is growing in-country value retention in the sector from the current 26 percent to 70 percent within the next 10 years.
The Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Engr. Simbi Wabote stated this on Tuesday at Owerri, Imo State, at the 2nd edition of Nigerian Content Workshop organised by New Planets Projects. He added that the new phase of implementation was underpinned by the 10-year strategic road- map developed recently by the Board.
He said the new targets will be achieved using a two-pronged approach, which includes creating enabling environment to attract investors and protecting existing and new local investment by effective compliance oversight and monitoring. It will also “require deepening of local content practice in the upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors of our oil and gas industry.”
Dwelling on the Board’s 10-year road map, Wabote said the successful attainment will be hinged on five pillars, namely Technical Capability Development, Compliance and Enforcement, Enabling Business Environment, Organisation Capability and Sectorial and Regional Market Linkage.
He said the Board will seek to extend and deepen in-country technical capability through the completion of five oil and gas parks in Delta, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Bayelsa and Imo States; establishment of two additional pipe mills; local manufacture of LPG Gas Cylinders; collaboration to establish a dry dock facility in-country to cater for the maintenance of big vessels, including LNG carriers; local fabrication of modular refineries and demonstration of 50 percent FPSO Integration capability in 3-4 years and 100 percent integration within 10 years.
As part of the road map, he said the Board’s compliance and enforcement monitoring efforts will be extended to all operators and service providers in the upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors of the oil and gas industry.
The Executive Secretary underscored the Board’s efforts to create an enabling Business Environment that encourages investment. “A key element is the reduction in aggregate cycle time of the Board’s touch points in the industry contracting process. We will also co-develop and implement service level agreements (SLAs) on processes that interface with operators and other external stakeholders like we recently executed with NLNG.”
He identified the need for sectorial and regional market linkages to increase industry contribution to the National GDP and facilitate access of Nigerian-made goods and services to regional markets.
He said the Board will also pursue regional marketing of some of the infrastructures being developed such as the FPSO Integration facility while sectorial linkages to other sectors such as power, ICT, construction, mines and steel will continue.
Responding to questions on the Nigerian Content Development Fund (NCDF), Wabote said the Board decided to create a transparent platform through which contributors can access the Fund for capacity building, before sanctioning companies that default in remitting one percent value of their contracts to the NCDF.
Declaring the workshop open, Governor of Imo State, Owelle Rochas Okorocha stated that the Nigerian Content Policy has contributed positively to the development of the national economy. He regretted that the policy was introduced after 50 years of oil exploration and production in Nigeria and the nation lost opportunities to maximize the benefits from the sector in the early years.
Okorocha stated that Imo State had the second largest gas deposits in the country, which can meet the power needs of the nation. He persuaded investors to take advantage of the abundant gas resources in state to site various kinds of industries. He averred that the process of extracting gas from the state was cost effective in comparism to other locations, being that the terrain in Imo state was mostly onshore.
He also assured that investors will enjoy a bouquet of incentives and enjoy the peaceful environment the State Government was working hard to maintain.
