From Uche Usim, Abuja

When the story of Nigeria’s gas evolution is told, the name Engr. Emeka Okwuosa  would certainly merit a prominent mention as a major player in Nigeria’s most audacious gas contract, the $2.8 billion 614km Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline project.

Okwuosa is the executive chairman of Oilserv Limited, Frazimex Energy Services Limited, Frazimex Engineering Limited, Frazpower Limited and Frazoil Limited. He is not only an engineer involved in the construction of high-tech industrial facilities, he is also a farmer with a thirst for solving Nigeria’s food insecurity nightmare through his company, Excel Farms Limited.

The firm is involved in innovative agricultural projects that incorporate cassava and tomato farming, complete with full industrial processing facilities.

His name may not readily ring a bell in the social arena because his businesses are tucked away in remote bushes and swamps, but his achievements do. Besides, he is not crazy about publicity, as he prefers his projects to speak for themselves.

He was born 60 years ago in Oraifite, Ekwusigo Local Government Area of Anambra State. He attended the Community Boys Secondary School in the same town, before proceeding to  the University of Ife, where he bagged a degree in Electronics and Electrical Engineering in 1982.

With many iron bars in the furnace, he is into pipeline engineering, procurement and construction, project management, seismic acquisition, drilling services, wire long logging and interpretation, maintenance and operations.

Okwuosa is also deeply involved in philanthropy and for that reason he set up the Sir Chukwuemeka Okwuosa Foundation, a charity organisation that handles his contributions in the areas of education, road construction, erosion control, provision of water, electricity and health. The foundation built the Dame Nneka Okwuosa Medical Centre, a N1 billion health facility, in his hometown of Oraifite.

Okwuosa has committed over N100 million to educational development in his home state of Anambra. He sponsors the biannual international workshops on science development, and has plans to build a first-of-its-kind science park in Africa. He also sponsors the PETAN Roundtable at the annual Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas, USA.

Indeed his footprints are indelible across the global hydrocarbon sub-sector, with higher presence in oil and gas pipeline networks.

A widely travelled expert, Okwuosa has worked in Europe (France and Scotland), North Africa (Libya), West Africa (Mauritania, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana), Gulf of Guinea/Central Africa (Nigeria, Benin, Cameroon, Gabon, Congo and Angola), and Indonesia in various capacities, ranging from field engineer to technical manager.

His most popular company, Oilserv Limited, started operations fully in 1995 and worked exclusively for Shell for five years.

That was after he worked for Schlumberger Worldwide and returned to Nigeria in 1994 with the vision of building the country’s capacity in oil and gas technical services.

Oilserv started with building flow lines for Shell and eventually began building trunk lines and pipelines for them, after which he delved into building facilities like manifold stations, including the largest such facility in Nigeria.

After the deal with Shell, his firm diversified into working for other international oil companies (IOCs) and for the Nigerian LNG in maintaining their pipeline transmission systems. The firm is recognised for its strong technical background based on his vision and experience.

His company has grown to the point where its service delivery covers entire pipelines and flow lines of all sizes. The vast majority of pipelines it constructs today are mainly gas, rather than oil pipelines, as more and more gas pipelines are being built as distribution systems throughout the country.

So, how did he build such a strong company despite inherent challenges in Nigeria?

Related News

“I have a strong engineering background; therefore, Oilserv is driven by my vision as an engineer. We started well before the Local Content Act was passed, and were already competing with international companies, getting jobs and delivering these efficiently. The high quality of our delivery has given us a strong track record but it is not just about the delivery, as we are cost-effective, too. We deliver far cheaper results than the multinationals can and our robust engineering background is the reason for this.

“From inception, we have trained our people in using a range of heavy-duty and specialised equipment, and we continue to do this. We choose between 30 and 40 graduates annually for our graduate programme,” he said, adding, “We are the primary indigenous construction company in this sector, having built over 30 pipelines, far exceeding the number that any other indigenous company has created. Oilserv is the only Nigerian company with the capacity to construct 10 pipeline projects simultaneously, and we are currently working on nine. On top of that, we are building a 48-inch-diameter pipeline, which will be Africa’s largest.

“We are talking about a full EPC contract, including maintenance for the four months following construction, which is a capacity that no other contractor can ensure. We employ more than 500 people and our activities are spread all across Nigeria, and we also run additional operations in other African countries.”

The AKK gas pipeline, in which Oilserv is deeply involved, is expected to be the game-changer in Nigeria’s gas infrastructural development because it flaunts all the attributes of industrial stimulus.

Manufacturing capacity in Nigeria today is highly constrained by energy issues. Running manufacturing by liquid fuel is far too expensive and unprofitable; power supply for industrial activity is grossly inadequate.  So, the AKK pipeline holds potential to feed power plants with fuel energy to generate adequate electricity for homes and businesses. The pipeline can also directly feed industry and commerce with cleaner, cheaper gas energy. In both ways, the AKK pipeline is going to enable the industrial sector of the economy to optimise its potential for growth, job creation and contribution to gross domestic product (GDP).

Analysts say the biggest value that the AKK pipeline holds is the testament to the government’s commitment to the Nigerian content policy. Save the funding arrangement, which necessarily entails Chinese content in the project, the full project scope would have been delivered by the indigenous Oilserv consortium, which also delivered the even more challenging Obiafu-Obriko-Oben (OB3) pipeline on which the AKK pipeline is anchored.

Okwuosa says that the consortium led by his company is working in concert to provide best-in-class EPC services for the NNPC and Nigeria in consonance with the company’s track record of delivering world-class pipeline construction, even in the most challenging terrains.

“Oilserv is a 100 per cent indigenous company currently employing more than 600 staff. With this new AKK development, it probably will go to between 1,500 and 2,000 at the peak of the personnel matrix.

“But the fact remains that we are ready. This is not the first project. We are commissioning the OB3 gas project, which is slightly larger than this in terms of diameter. The OB3 is 48 inches in diameter. So, we have the experience, we have the personnel, we have the equipment and we are capable and we would deliver this project.

“More importantly, the involvement of Oilserv makes the project more realistic. The reliance on local expertise also makes the infrastructure more sustainable and cheaper in terms of long-term maintenance plan. With the Oilserv consortium, government would not suffer maintenance hitches similar to the impasse that plague the local refineries following the refusal of original builders to honour maintenance commitments.”

Considering that Nigeria’s university curriculum today is not adapted to specific industries, Oilserv runs a scheme that guides graduates in the right direction in the oil and gas industry, whereby it builds capacity internally and trains people in quality delivery and guarantees client satisfaction.

Oilserv is one of the few companies with the capacity to deploy and operate horizontal directional drilling systems to preserve ecosystems, and the first to deploy automatic and semi-automatic welding systems on a large scale, when 90 per cent of today’s welding systems are still manual.

Okwuosa is a member of several professional bodies and associations, including the Council for the Regulation of Engineering of Nigeria (COREN), Society of Professional Well Log Analysts (SPWLA), Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN) and the Pipeline Professionals Association of Nigeria (PLAN). Others are the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE), Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Nigerian Gas Association (NGA) and the Institute of Directors (IoD).

Okwuosa received the OTC/PETAN Award of Excellence every year from 2009 to 2017 in Houston; U.S. Africa International Oil & Gas Leadership Award (Best of Africa) in 2013; Lifetime Achievement Award by PETAN in 2015; Award of Excellence by the Nanotechnology Research Group of the Physics Department, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 2014 and 2016, as well as the Nigeria Advancement Award for Creativity and Enterprise in 2016.

He also received the Industrialist of the Year Award in 2016, International Socrates Award in 2016, while Oilserv received the Oil & Gas Organisation Award by African Entrepreneurs Foundation in 2017. He is a recipient of the National Productive Order of Merit Award bestowed by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Okwuosa is a strong advocate of good systems for the management of the industry. He also canvasses a strong regulatory system that is fit for this purpose, one that adapts to the environment and to changes within the global oil and gas industry.

He is also of the opinion that IOCs divestment, on face value, is encouraging for Nigerian players.