By Charles Nwaoguji
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, has charged the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) to ensure that the Nigerian oil and gas industry is able to produce all its needs by the year 2027.
The Minister set the target in Owerri, Imo State at the just-concluded Nigerian Content Workshop, organised by New Planets Projects in conjunction with the Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources Upstream.
He said the Federal Government expects that over the next 10 years, the Nigeria oil and gas industry, in collaboration with foreign investors would have developed in-country capacities and capabilities to produce all its offshore platforms locally. “I would like to see the Japanese coming; I would like to see the Koreans come here; I would like to see collaborative efforts that will make our oil industry produce everything that we need.” he said.
He acknowledged the giant strides made by the Board in seven years, commending particularly the excellent achievements of the current Executive Secretary, Simbi Wabote, whom he credited for working with energy and passion and meeting several targets set for the board in the past one year.
Noting that Nigerian Content achievement in engineering services had hit 80 per cent, the Minister insisted that performance in offshore aspects of the industry was still substantially low and charged international and local operating oil companies to collaborate with the NCDMB to achieve the new target.
Kachikwu described Nigerian Content as the future of the industry. According to him, “it doesn’t matter how much money we make, how much gas we produce or alternative fossils we produce; if we do not ensure that a lot of that is captured locally in terms of benefits, we have no stake.”
Commenting on NCDMB’s strategies for addressing non-compliance with provisions of the Nigerian Content Act by some companies, the minister said the focus should not be on identifying defaulters and penalising them.
According to him, NCDMB should develop corrective measures and understand why some companies fail to comply. “The board needs to develop corrective visitation programmes to institutions that have not complied. Sit down with them and do an audit of the issues and jointly develop models, giving specific timelines for delivery and create incentives for those who comply and penalise those who blatantly refuse to comply” he said.
On industry’s capacity building initiatives, the Minister directed NCDMB, the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) and the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) to collaborate and develop a plan for training youths who are involved in pipeline vandalism, illegal refining and other illicit activities in the oil and gas industry.
The training programme will focus on improving their skillsets and getting them to embrace productive activities.