The Minister of State for Petroleum, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, says bringing another deep-water project shortly after the coming on stream of the $16 billion Egina project in December this year is a major concern to the government.
This is as he says the government is also worried over the delay in the execution of deepwater projects.
The minister who spoke after visiting the multi billion dollar Egina Floating production storage offshore (FPSO) anchored at the Lagos Deep Offshore Logistic (LADOL) said a project like Egina tells how slow we are as nation are in the execution of projects that could bring growth to the nation’s economy.
He however said that the government is going to work hard to see how it can bring into fruition other company jobs like Zabazaba, Bonga Southwest, Owowo provided the government can reach a proper terms with them
“ It’s a major concern but we are going to work hard to see how we can bring into fussion other company jobs like Zabazaba, Bonga Sothwest and Owowo provided we can reach a proper terms with them. Jobs? Yes. We still have a few months going to complete the Egina project but what has happened is that it has opened a huge opportunities in welding, painting and they need to get something into employment”, he said.
He said: “Again, we will be encouraging some the Nigerians that have acquired skills in the course of the jobs on Egina project of to set up things with the skills they have acquired. We want young people to set up jobs themselves. We can run a system where we feel there must be a constant migration of jobs all the time”.
He said investments in the oil and gas sector are booming, a explaining that Egina project is about $16billion investment, Bonga South west between $9-11 billion, Zabazaba is fairly a healthy sum and infrastructure is ready for revamp. He stated that there are so many opportunities in the projects. But what needed to be done is to get the policies and incentives to drive these investments
Also speaking at the event, Simbi Wabote, Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) appealed to the Federal Government to sanction more deepwater projects so that Nigerians trained on account of the Egina project are not thrown into the Labour market.
He said one of the very important moments of the project was when he went to South Korea and saw some of the modules fabricated in Nigeria were being fixed. He said the paint used for the FPSO was manufactured in Nigeria.
He told the minister that if there is no jobs from upstream activities there would not be local content, adding that there are about 4000 Nigerians trained as welders , fabricators and other related fields but which may be thrown out of job after fixing the six modules fabricated in the country on the FPSO soon.
The NCMDB boss said that the Egina project has not only raised the bar for local content but has also knocked out the popular notion among industry operators that Nigerian companies don’t deliver works on schedule and that local companies prices are too expensive.
“We are not going go back even by one percent in the local content level that has been achieved through Egina project. I urge other companies to study what Total Exploration and Production has been doing in the project has made it local content component a success
He appealed to minister to ensure that stakeholders in the Bonga South west, Zabazaba, and owowo sanction the projects for the purpose of ensuring continuity of jobs and expansion of local content in Nigeria and further develop local content in country
Also speaking, Frank Ejizsu, chief operating official of Samsung Heavy Industries in Nigeria, said that project was never believed it was going to happen, adding that it would however not have happened without the support of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC, Total Exploration and Production and the Federal Government.
He said his company would begin to mount the six modules on the FPSO by March and that there were no injuries recorded throughout the duration of the project.
“We will work to target so that the FPSO would move to site by the end of July”, he said..
