The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) on Friday held an engagement session with youth groups and civil society organisations (CSOs) as part of its renewed drive for awareness creation concerning its functions and activities as well as enabling statute.
In a welcome address to representatives of youth groups and CSOs in Bayelsa State at the Harold Dappa-Biriye Hall, Golden Tulip Resort, Yenagoa, the Executive Secretary of he NCDMB, Engr. Felix Omatsola Ogbe underlined the need to focus its awareness and sensitisation activities on oil and gas industry players and host communities, including contractors and vendors.
Citing Section 67 of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act, 2010, which requires the Board to regularly conduct workshops, seminars, conferences and public forums, for the purpose of general enlightenment on Nigerian Content initiatives, he expressed satisfaction with the success achieved thus far in terms of levels of compliance with regulations, cooperation and collaboration in diverse forms.
“We have done so much at the higher level, talking and sharing ideas,” he declared, adding, “now our focus is on you and the grassroots.” According to the NCDMB boss, it is critically important “to let youths understand their connection to local content…that they are part of Nigerian Content.”
Engr. Ogbe, represented by the General Manager, Corporate Communications Division (CCD), Dr. Obinna Ezeobi, said the Board recognises that “Youths have high interest and high influence” and could contribute significantly to steady growth and sustainability of the oil and gas industry. He assured that engagements with youths and CSOs would henceforth be regular events.
In a related presentation on activities of the Board since 2010, Dr. Ezeobi noted that local capacities and capabilities have been developed on the back of the NOGICD Act, 2010, which he described as “disruptor of the old order in the oil and gas industry,” when the sector was under total dominance of foreign interests and in-country retention of industry spend was as low as five per cent.
He said the Board has been intentional about its development-oriented activities in Bayelsa State since its establishment in 2010. Its multibillion-naira 17-storey corporate headquarters, the tallest and most magnificent edifice in the South-East and South-South parts of the country. Hundreds of oil and gas industry players are continually in the State for one event or the other at the Nigerian Content Tower (NCT) every year.
Adjacent to the NCT is the 204-room four-star NCDMB Conference Hotel at over 80 per cent completion, which is first of its type in the State, and is expected to boost the hospitality industryafter commissioning in 2026. Quite significantly, the top-of-the-range Best Western Plus Hotel, Oxbow Lake, in the vicinity of the NCT was attracted to the state capital by the presence of the NCDMB and captains of industry who visit regularly.
He mentioned the NCDMB Gas Hub in Gbarain, adjacent to the Shell Gbarain-Ubie Gas Plant with capacity for one billion standard cubic feet (scf) of gas per day. The Gas Hub, which sits on 10.6 hectares of land, was conceived for domiciliation of gas-related enterprises and the industrialisation of the State, and currently hosts Rungas Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Composite Cylinder Manufacturing Plant, Azikel Refinery, and other firms.
The NCDMB, in partnership with Agip, built a 10-megawatt power plant at Elebele, near the state capital, which provides electricity to the Nigerian Content Tower, Government House, Yenagoa, and some critical government facilities. Excess power from the plant is available for purchase by interested corporate bodies or cooperatives.
In addition, the NCDMB has developed an industrial park in the State under its Nigerian Oil and Gas Park Scheme (NOGaPS) at Emeyal 1 in Ogbia Local Government Area. It is to serve as a local hub for manufacturing of essential components and spares required in oil and gas industry operations. In that way it will facilitate domiciliation and domestication of oil and gas activities in the State.
According to Dr. Ezeobi, the Board has instituted a US$50 million NOGaPS Manufacturing Fund to incentivise manufacturers through affordable finance to set up business at the Park. Within the Park are factory spaces, guaranteed power supply, maintenance workshops and shop floors, a gigantic administrative block, clinics, and training centres. The Park is awaiting connection to power supply to be commissioned in 2026, he said.
The CCD boss also highlighted the Brass Island Shipyard which the Board is championing in partnership with the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited and for which engineering design has been completed. The multibillion-naira facility would be for drydocking of oil and gas tankers, and would hopefully make Brass Island the hub for such industry operations in the near future.
Oloibiri Museum and Research Centre (OMRC), at Otuabagi in Ogbia Local Government Area, is another project of strategic importance being championed by the NCDMB. Jointly funded by the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), NCDMB, Shell Petroleum Development Company (now Renaissance Africa Energy Limited) and Bayelsa State Government, the project is billed for completion and commissioning within 30 months.
Other contributions of the Board to the economic development of the State include vocational training and youth empowerment schemes from which thousands of Bayelsa youths have benefitted over the years.
In his own address, the Chairman, Bayelsa State Council of Traditional Rulers, King Bubaraye Dakolo, Agada IV, the Ibenanaowei of Ekpetiama Kingdom, urged youths to prioritise dialogue and negotiations in their dealings with companies in their respective communities. “If you negotiate properly, the outcome will ever be better,” he told the youth.
According to the respected monarch, youths and other activists need to have reliable facts and information any time they seek to engage with companies or government, and have to be honestand respectful, pointing out that NCDMB and the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) are products of negotiations.
The youth groups and CSOs commended the NCDMB for its Human Capacity Developmentprogrammes, vocational training and empowerment schemes, as well as efforts to engage with them and promised to cooperate with the Board. They, however, requested that the Board seek means of ensuring that beneficiaries of HCD programme were provided employment.
CSOs and youth groups from across Bayelsa State and beyond were represented at the sensitization programme.
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