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INDUSTRY NEWS
Aiteo Announces Senior Leaership Appointments By Margaret Nongo-Okojokwu
Chevron confirms Fire incident at Ojumole Well 1 Firm Reiterates Commitment to Protecting People and Environment
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ollowing a review of its operational and investment objectives and in reaction to prevailing business environment, Aiteo has restructured its executive management, naming a number of critical appointments and reassignments. In a statement signed by the company’s spokesperson, Mr Ndiana Matthew and made available to Majorwaves Energy Report; the appointments were confirmed by Aiteo’s Chief Executive and Executive Vice Chairman, Mr. Benedict Peters, who explained that the organisation had undertaken the exercise driven by the necessity to realign its considerable interests across the various sectors within which it currently operates, in his words; “…to make the investment arms of the various businesses more effective; galvanise and enhance collective productivity to demonstrate visibly profitable outcomes for the ultimate benefit of its considerable stakeholders…” Peters further observed that “… the uniqueness of the Group demands that an infusion of important impetus is given the necessary momentum by recognising as well as empowering key positions within the Group and realigning its considerable personcapacity to fit operational demands”, he said. He further stated,“… I am delighted to confirm that we have been able to harmonise such a talented team to deepen and embolden the growth and future of our businesses, direction of which has been predicated on the urge to enhance innovative, new approaches to the beneficiation of resources across the Energy landscape.” Mr. Peters further confirmed that “…we have always prided ourselves in housing a strong blend of skills which has been central to the attainment of our investment objectives. These appointments bring together important experiences as well as industry initiative, policy, technical and financing skills. Most importantly, it maximizes the strong energy among the team to provide material impact in sustaining refreshing, creative conviction to our approach to achieving the very lofty
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By Margaret Nongo-Okojokwu goals that we have set for ourselves”. The leadership restructuring saw Mr. Chike Onyejekwe, the pioneer Managing Director of Aiteo E & P Limited who would be retiring from the company, being replaced as Managing Director by Mr. Victor Okoronkwo. Currently Senior Vice President, Commercial & Gas for Aiteo E & P Limited, Victor brings over 30 years of Oil and Gas experience to this position. Prior to joining Aiteo, he worked in various leadership capacities with the Shell Group in Nigeria and abroad as General Manager. Mr. Emmanuel Ukegbu the Chief Operating Officer of Aiteo E & P Limited will also be retiring from the company. In related moves, Mr. Emmanuel Ogagarue currently General Manager, Assets will become the Director in charge of Asset Development and Engineering. Mr. James Iwoh will become the Director in charge of Production and Operations, from his current position as General Manager, Operations. Mr. Mitchell Uchegbulam the current Chief Financial Officer becomes Group Head, Planning, Budget and Implementation and will report to the Group Office. Mr. Taiye Eyewuoma, presently General Manager Joint Venture & Project Management, becomes Acting Chief Financial Officer, Aiteo E & P Limited. Mrs. Osareme Archibong, current Deputy Chief Financial Officer/ Head Corporate Finance, becomes General Manager, Joint Venture Finance, Aiteo E & P Limited. Mr.Uzoh Anijah–Obi, currently Treasury Manager becomes Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Aiteo E & P Limited. All appointments are to take immediate effect.
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hevron Nigeria Limited has reiterated its commitment to protecting people and environment just as well as confirming there was fire incident at Ojumole Well No 1 on April 18 Chevron Nigeria Limited, CNL, operator of the joint venture, JV, between the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, and CNL, NNPC/CNL JV, confirms that at about 10:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 18, a fire was observed at the Ojumole Well No. 1, an idle and plugged well with no flowline connected to it. Ojumole field is in NNPC/CNL JV’s Western Niger Delta area of operations. CNL conducted an overflight to evaluate the fire and also mobilised emergency responders to assess the site, contain the fire and boom the area. In addition, CNL notified community stakeholders about the incident and also reported it to the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency, NOSDRA, and other regulatory and security authorities. A joint Investigation visit, JIV, to the site of the incident on Saturday, April 20, by a team made up of regulatory agencies, community stakeholders and CNL, determined that the fire incident was caused by third-party interference. There was no impact to any of the neighboring communities. A statement signed by Esimaje Brikinn, general manager, Policy Government and Public Affairs, Chevron, and made available to Majorwaves Energy Report on recently said “CNL is currently working with contractors to safely put out the fire as quickly as possible. “CNL remains committed to the safety of the communities and the environment in its areas of operation. We continue to conduct our operations safely, reliably and efficiently, with utmost consideration for protection of people and the environment”. www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
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INDUSTRY EVENTS
WAIPEC Becomes SAIPEC
“Now established as the leading oil and gas meeting for the whole region and due to collective agreement of all involved across Sub Saharan Africa, WAIPEC will become the Sub Saharan African International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (SAIPEC), taking place between 2527 February 2020 at the Eko Hotel and Convention Centre.” - BAYO OJULARI, MANAGING DIRECTOR, THE SHELL NIGERIA EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION COMPANY (SNEPco) With a record-breaking 2,817 exhibition visitors, 650 delegates from 36 countries, 11 NOC’s, 104 exhibitors and 54 speakers, the 3rd West Africa Petroleum Exhibition and Conference was the most successful meeting place for SubSaharan Africa’s oil and gas industry. The newly formed Sub Saharan Africa International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (SAIPEC) will return to the Eko Convention Centre 25-27 February 2020 for its 4th edition, as the only oil and gas event held in partnership with the entire Sub Saharan African petroleum industry. Speaking on behalf of PETAN, the Publicity Secretary, Ranti Omole, in an interview with Majorwaves Energy
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Report, explained that the move was to enable participants from non-WestAfrican countries associate with the programme, not as invitees. He noted the increasing number of delegates from Angola, Mozambique, Kenya, and Tanzania, among other countries. Secondly, he emphasized the need for collaboration among sub-Saharan countries as a key driver. Speaking further, he said, “We need to have a collaborative platform and a market place for oil and gas activities in sub-Saharan Africa. More countries are enjoined to participate. So, we are moving beyond government participation to ensuring privatesector-led collaboration.” Working directly with PETAN, the organisers will draw on their global resources to ensure that the event delivers to the needs of all stakeholders throughout the region. WAIPEC 2019 was the largest petroleum event of its kind in West Africa, as the city of Lagos welcomed in thousands of key regional stakeholders - plus leading international E&P firms and partners - to develop and drive new business across the sector. It featured in excess of 25 technical and strategic conference sessions, driven by an esteemed steering committee.
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We n e e d t o h a v e a collaborative platform and a market place for oil and gas activities in sub-Saharan Africa. More countries are enjoined to participate. So, we are moving beyond government participation to ensuring private-sector-led collaboration.” www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
PHOTO GALLERY
SCENES FROM WAIPEC 2019
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INDUSTRY EVENTS
Regional Integration: “There Is Power in Collaboration” – Shindi
James Shindi, CEO Brevity Anderson
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ames Shindi is the Chief E xe c ut i ve o f B r ev it y A nderson, organisers of the annual Nigeria International Petroleum Summit (NIPS). In this interview with the Editor, MARGARET NONGOOKOJOKWU he speaks on the need for collaboration among African countries in order to create a cross pollinating of ideas across the continent to bring about regional integration and continental development. Excerpts; We saw increased numbers, what was unique about NIPS 2019? If you look at the success of the 2018 edition and how Brevity Anderson and the Nigerian government set out to build on those successes , the increased number of participants in the 2019 edition was not unexpected. In the first edition, we had the who is who of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria attend. In addition, we had
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participation from several foreign bodies like OPEC, APPO, IEC, etc at the highest level, with the heads of these organisations attending in person and openly endorsing the event. Besides that, we had thirteen (13) ministers from outside Nigeria also in attendance, with delegations from across the globe. NIPS 2019 was unique as it addressed the technical, operational a nd com mercia l cha l lenge s associated with future sector growth. The three-day event featured an exhibition where 50+ supply chain companies showcased their products and services. Next to that, there was an accompanying conference and technical workshops that covered key topics and solutions for the E & P, Petrochemical & Refining; offshore community and finance et cetera. The NIPS 2019 edition attracted over 5,000 unique attendees representing 30+ nationalities.
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What’s in store for NIPS 2020? What’s the big picture for NIPS? NIPS has rapidly grown in two years to become the biggest cross medial platform for professionals representing the entire upstream, mid-stream and downstream value chain to meet in Nigeria. It is a massive avenue to discuss topical industry developments, stay up-todate and expand industry network. We are seriously working to make NIPS 2020 surpass the last two editions targeting 100 exhibitors at least, expecting 1,500 delegates, over 60 diverse nationalities, and looking forward to 5,000 visitors to the exhibition What does Nigeria benefit by having more of these oil and gas conferences locally? Can you put numbers to it? Estimate?
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INDUSTRY EVENTS
Nigeria has an enviable track record of being a stable and prooil and gas industry country. It is a pivotal moment in the nation’s history to demonstrate the caliber of its hydrocarbons industry and to accelerate the achievements of oil and gas producers in Nigeria. We had fantastic presentations from SHELL and Total E & P Nigeria at the recent event. More so, the government through the ministry of petroleum and parastatals under it recognized the importance of collaborating with influential organizations locally such as NCDMB, SPE Nigeria, OPTS, IPPG, NGA, NAPE, OGTAN etc and internationally like APPO, OPEC and GECF so as to unite oil and gas stakeholders on a collective global platform that will ultimately promote collaboration and encourage new investment. This is what NIPS represents to Nigeria distinctively just like the way we sees the Annual OTC event in Houston. Let’s know your thoughts on regional integration among professionals in African countries. I personally feel more of that is actually happening now than previously. More and more regional players are getting the message that this is a numbers’ game and there is power in collaboration. We are seeing a cross pollinating of ideas across the continent with a real sense of brotherhood. More needs to be done, for sure, but I am confident that steps are being taken in the www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
right direction and not the other way round. Events like N.I.P.S are just one example of where we see this happening. The dearth of infrastructure impacts negatively on local content. How do you think Nigeria and Africa can best confront this issue seeing it will cost trillions of US Dollars? Whether we refer to general infrastructure or with specific reference to the oil and gas industry, there is never going to be a silver bullet. The scale of the gap is so much that not even governments have the singular resources to close the gap. The other option to the look at is PPPs and how we can trigger more private sector capital investment in infrastructure. The role government then has to play is to continue to create that the enabling environment to attract investment. Where you have increased investor confidence, what happens next is natural. What’s your assessment of Nigeria’s local content law? The nation’s desire to build on its strengths by generating higher growth, help retain and create new jobs, build competitive industries at home as well as deliver its expertise to the world, led to the promulgation of the local content Act which has seen the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board
(NCDMB) heavily enforce national content rules to strengthen the role, development and growth of Nigerian nationals in the oil and gas industry especially. The scope is now being expanded to other sectors, which is good. To ensure compliance with the country’s local content regulations, NCDMB carries out regular audit to assess efforts taken by operators and contractors towards domestic capacity building and promotion of entrepreneurship. Defaulters are heavily sanctioned. In this regard, NCDMB have done an excellent job and we can all see the results of this, whether in the building of modular refineries or other huge projects running into billions of dollars. Why are you attending OTC 2019? Since 1969, the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) endorsed by 13 industry organizations and societies covering all aspects of the energy industry, provides the platform for energy professionals to meet for exchange of ideas and opinions to advance scientific and technical knowledge for offshore resources and environmental matters. NIPS is premised on what OTC represents, it is capacity building for us to see what has kept OTC relevant for 50 years. It is also a veritable platform to market NIPS to the global audience by ensuring they capture it as a must attend petroleum show in Africa. It is important for NIPS to be represented.
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LOCAL CONTENT
OGTAN ACE 2019: Gowon, Wabote Harp on Human Capital Development for National Transformation
Stakeholders from various sectors including the former Military President, General Yakubu Gowon called for increased development of human capacities as the driver for national development. The former military President made the assertion at the second Oil and Gas Trainers’ Association Annual Conference and Exhibition in Lagos. General Gowon who was the chairman of the event mentioned that efforts must be geared at developing human capabilities in leadership and entrepreneurial skills. He said for the nation to be able to achieve economic competitiveness at regional and global stage, it is important to place premium on human capital development. He reiterated that the domestic values of the oil and gas can be retained only if there is continuous growth of the indigenous capacities. In his words, “as you know globalization and the knowledge economy is no longer a matter of debate, rather, they have become matters of existential considerations for nations and organizations alike. It is imperative that we place pivotal premium on human capital development.” The Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board , Engr. Simbi Wabote while delivering the keynote address on the theme ‘Human capital development as a driver for national transformation: Issues And Possibilities’ calls for the need to speedily tackle the issue slowing down Human Capacity Development in our country. Wabote stressed that government has been over 12
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stretched by the demands of education and training for the entire populace and could not completely tackle it all alone, hence the need for greater involvement of the private sector. “A look at the Federal Government’s 2019 budget shows that N621billion is allocated to the Education sector with only N34billion or 5% of it set aside for capital expenditure. Despite our view about this budget provision, it cannot be compared to a scenario in which the 79 private universities were to be among those that the government had to cater for in its yearly budget. It is thus important that the government starts looking at passing over about 20% of the schools to private or religious organizations within the next 5 years in order to lessen its burden.” Wabote pointed. Wabote highlighted the capacity building strides of the Board which has impacted positively on human, material and economic resources of Nigerians. He said, “We have taken specific steps to train maritime cadets, secondary school teachers, agricultural entrepreneurs, pilots, technicians, engineers, and environmentalists with over 6 million training manhours delivered” While commending OGTAN members for their efforts towards addressing human capital development need of the oil sector, Wabote charged the group to aim at being top-notch training provider so as to reduce capital flight. In his remarks, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu stressed the needs to set appropriate timelines to unlock the
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potentials that can make the oil sector drive itself in a way that will provide more opportunities for Nigerians. “We must begin to focus on how to unlock potentials in this field that will enable us fix the peculiarities that is facing our industry. Our thoughts should be channeled to how do we fix power, our aging pipelines and get gas to become clean energy efficiency with less of government resources and more of private sector resources.” Delivering his welcome address, the President, OGTAN, Dr Mayowa Afe noted that training and acquisition of necessary skills is a prerequisite for socio economic transformation. He asserted, “Our wealth is not oil and gas but the human capital that we are endowed with by God”. While acknowledging the gains of the NOGICD Act 2010 as one of the best things that has happened to the country, Afe called for more opportunities to be given to indigenous trainers and involvement of OGTAN in the Board of various agencies of Federal government. This year’s edition of the conference witnessed the conferment of award on the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu as the Oil and Gas man of the year and Engr Simbi Wabote awarded for his innovations in the local content development. Other awards were presented to the Group Managing Director, NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru among others.
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SOCIAL INVESTMENT
Exxonmobil Commits $5.7m to Support for Fight against Malaria ExxonMobil continues its support for fight against malaria by committing $5.7 million to efforts focused on prevention and delivering life-saving tools and health services
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xxonMobil has committed $5.7 million in support for local and global organisations working to eliminate malaria around the world. This year’s grants, announced in conjunction with World Malaria Day, will continue the company’s nearly 20-year effort to reduce the global burden of malaria, a disease that still causes an estimated 435,000 deaths annually despite being preventable, treatable and curable.
ExxonMobil works with partners in Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique, Nigeria and Papua New Guinea to identify and promote solutions to fight the disease. Activities and public events planned in those countries to commemorate World Malaria Day include voluntary testing and counseling sessions, mosquito net distribution, community events and public awareness campaigns.
ExxonMobil’s malaria initiative has worked to advance progress against malaria though partnerships focused on developing the next generation of global health leaders and building health system capacity by supporting education and improving access to tools for malaria prevention, diagnosis and treatment. “We focus our attention on local and global organizations that deliver health services and supplies directly to affected communities,” said Kevin Murphy, president of the ExxonMobil Foundation. “While great progress continues to be made in saving lives from malaria around the world, important work remains to prevent the disease’s resurgence.”
The 2019 grant recipients include ADPP Angola, Africare, Baylor College of Medicine, Corporate Alliance on Malaria in Africa, CAMA, Friends of the Global Fight, Grassroot Soccer, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Jhpiego, Malaria No More, PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative, Seed Global Health, Special Olympics, Tchova Tchova, ExxonMobil Global Health Scholars at the University of Oxford and Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network, WWARN. Since 2000, ExxonMobil has invested a total of $170 million, supporting the delivery of 15 million bed nets to prevent mosquito bites, the administration of 5 million antimalarial treatments
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and the distribution of 3.9 million rapid diagnostic kits. The company has also supported the training of 700,000 health workers. The ExxonMobil Foundation is the primary philanthropic arm of Exxon Mobil Corporation. The foundation and corporation engage in a range of philanthropic activities that advance education, promote women as catalysts for economic development and combat malaria. In 2018, the ExxonMobil Foundation together with ExxonMobil Corporation, its divisions and affiliates along with employees and retirees, provided $211 million in contributions worldwide. ExxonMobil, the largest publicly traded international oil and gas company, uses technology and innovation to help meet the world’s growing energy needs. ExxonMobil holds an industry-leading inventory of resources, is one of the largest refiners and marketers of petroleum products, and its chemical company is one of the largest in the world.
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INFRASTRUCTURE
Kachikwu Confirms $2.5bn required to facelift Nigerian Refineries ….Advances Discussions with Saudi Authorities on Nigeria’s Refinery Investment
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mmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, Nigeria’s Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia said about $2.5 billion is required to facelift the refineries to 90 per cent capabilities. Kachikwu,however, noted that the Minister of Energy Industry and Mineral Resources of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Khalid Al Falih had already advanced discussions on the possibility of establishing an independent refinery in Nigeria as the country considers Nigeria as best hub to reach other African countries. Kachikwu said a lot of options were already on the table but the country needs to urgently make the decision of going with one. The Minister said: ” I can’t make a final decision alone in terms of what options to be chosen. In terms of what options on the table for the refineries, NNPC negotiated with the investors for like one and half year after the president approved. Unfortunately, they couldn’t reach conclusion for whatever reason, we are obviously going to revisit the discussion. I think that’s the fastest way to go. “The second option is that, we decided that we are going to
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dip our hands into our own Internal funds, which we don’t have a lot of and make the money available. What is required is about $2.5billion to rekit the entire refinery and the reason why I don’t want to go that way is the fact that the country is constrained. Kachikwu said Nigeria’s third option was to target countries that could help out in terms of refining, insisting getting the four refineries up and running back to 90/95 per cent template was necessary without further delay. According to him, Nigeria remains key because of existing resources, location and technical know-how that would bolster investment decision.
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We are targeting those countries who want to put in investment either on a 100 per cent basis or collaboration with oil companies that have worked with them,” Kachikwu stated. He said the visit to Saudi Arabia became necessary due to common ground between the countries and the success of the country in the
sector. Kachikwu disclosed that the visit yielded positive results, which may lead massive investment from Saudi Arabia, including an independent refinery. “We want to leverage on the huge success of Saudi government in terms of petroleum. Last year alone. Saudi Aramco, an equivalent of NNPC is made about $200 billion as profits last year. “We have a lot of common ground, historical ties, religious ties and there’s a need to move further. We cooperate a lot with one another in OPEC especially in the Ministry of energy,” Kachikwu stated. According to him, Nigeria is already setting up a team to make the reasons for the visit a reality. Apart from series of engagement with key government personalities in Saudi, Kachikwu and his team met with top executives of Saudi Aramco, King Abdullah Petroleum Studies and Research Center (KAPSARC), Saudi basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) and Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu (RCJY) to explore possible solutions and business opportunities that would enable Nigeria grow its petroleum sector.
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Unlocking Deepwater opportunities in Sub-Sahara Africa By Jerome Onoja, Ike Amos eepwa ter oi l a n d ga s D exploration and production opportunities are daily rising in sub-Saharan Africa and major hydrocarbon finds have been recorded over the years.
This article highlights the opportunities in sub-Sahara Africa deepwater, ranging from Nigeria, Senegal, Congo and Angola among others and the many projects where investments are needed. Sub-Saharan Africa’s oil and gas industry, in the area of deepwater exploration and production, is looking increasingly promising, especially with the rising price of crude oil in the international market. Crude oil price is currently hovering 16
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around an average of $70 per barrel and prospects are rising for the vast deepwater resources in sub-Saharan Africa. PriceWaterHouse Coopers (PWC), in its Africa oil and gas review, titled, ‘Taking on tomorrow,’ disclosed that Africa’s proven reserves, at 126.5 billion barrels, driven by deepwater resources, is 7.5 per cent of the world’s proven reserves with no changes since prior year. The global auditing firm also stated that Africa’s crude oil production was 8.1 million barrels per day, 8.7 per cent of global production, up 0.3 per cent from prior year. It added that consumption at 4.0 million barrels per day, 4.1 per cent of global consumption, same as prior year. The report also put
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regional growth at 2.5 per cent and put exports from Africa at 6.8 million barrels per day, 10.1 per cent of global exports. In the area of gas, the report noted that Africa accounts for 7.1 per cent of the world’s proven reserves, with 487.8 trillion cubic feet of proven reserves, while the continent’s production stood at 7.95 TCf, comprising 6.1 per cent of global production, up 0.3 per cent from the previous year. The report added that pipeline exports from Africa stood at 1.6 TCF, declining by 3.3%, and making up 6.1% of global exports, down 0.4% compared to last year. PWC disclosed that the oil price collapse had reshaped the oil and gas industry globally as well as in Africa, www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
COVER STORY mostly in line with production cuts agreed to by OPEC members. It explained that South Sudan experienced another drop of 7.4% in production in 2017, while recent mediations in peace-deal negotiations led to the resumption of the pumping of crude from suspended fields in September 2018, hopefully pointing towards a turning point for the country. he report declared that two significant gas finds by Kosmos Energy in the Senegal-Mauritania basin in 2017 added an additional 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) of gas to their portfolio. “The Yakaar discovery coupled with the Teranga discovery in 2015 creates the foundation for another LNG hub in the basin according to Kosmos and joint venture partner BP. It was another record low year for the discovery of conventional resources globally in 2017, totaling only 7.5 billion BOE according to Rystad.
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T he avera ge offshore discovery in 2017 held 100 million BOE compared to 150 million in 2012. One African country, Senegal, made it to the top three,” it added.
noting that oil companies have adapted their portfolios to lower risk, focusing on high value plays and on reducing operational costs, while eyeing technologies in a quest to further streamline their businesses. The report declared that Africa’s share of global oil production had slightly increased by 0.3% since last year to 8.7% standing at 8.1 million barrels per day, adding that the main contributors continue to be Nigeria, Angola, Algeria and Egypt. Libya, the report explained, doubled production in 2017, promoting it to the fourth-largest oil producer in Africa with an 11% share, moving Egypt into fifth position. Among the top five the PWC report noted that Nigeria and Libya were the only countries to increase production, while the others declined,, www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
Other investment opportunities in sub-Sahara Africa include Total’s Zinia-2 project in Angola. The Zinia-2 project holds 80 million barrels of oil, tied-back to an existing Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO), extending the life of the infrastructure, and production will start inside two years. Global energy data research and consultancy firm, Wood Mackenzie disclosed that the economics of the Total’s Zinia-2 project in Angola are attractive, adding that its model indicates a 25% post-tax Internal Rate of Return (IRR) at Brent $65 per barrel. According to Wood Mackenzie, a critical factor behind the Zinia-2 FID, which was reached May 25, 2018, had been fiscal flexibility. It said, “Projects with low IRRs can qualify for marginal field terms. Angola’s new government, elected last year, raised the threshold from below 10% to below 15% on May 18, 2018, for fields of up to 300 million barrels. “We think there are at least a dozen Zinia 2-like potential incremental developments holding a combined 1.4 billion that may meet this definition.” The research and consultancy firm
added that there is a lot at stake, noting that sub-Saharan Africa has at least 23 billion barrels of oil and 54 TCF of gas yet-to- find (YTF), representing some 15% of the world’s YTF outside the US Lower 48. According to Wood Mackenzie, around half of these future reserves are in Angola and Nigeria, adding that sub-Saharan Africa region should be a magnet for IOCs and internationalising NOCs alike. Majority of the opportunities in subSaharan Africa lie within the West African sub-region deepwater oil and gas landscape. Specifically, in Senegal, a major deepwater field is the SNE. The SNE is a deep-water oil field discovery located offshore in the Sangomar Deep Block, 100 kilometers south of Dakar. It was discovered by the Cairn Energy led joint venture as the world’s largest oil discovery in 2014. In December 2018, Woodside was appointed operator of the development and commenced front-end engineering and design activities. The Phase 1 development concept for the SNE field is a stand-alone FPSO facility with subsea infrastructure. It will be designed to allow subsequent SNE development phases, including options for potential gas export to shore and for future subsea tiebacks from other reservoirs and fields. The development of the three-phase SNE field had been projected to generate approximately $16 billion in undiscounted fiscal take for the government. Furthermore, the recent addition of SNE’s natural gas reserves to the development plan, along with the announced Tortue gas project, are forecast to supply nearly 500 million cubic feet to the domestic gas market by 2030. The joint venture submitted the development and exploitation plan in October 2018, including a stand-alone floating production storage and offloading vessel and subsea infrastructure designed to allow future tiebacks. Woodside has recently taken over as development lead and it is expected to reach the final investment decision in H2 2019.
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COVER STORY
seven years. The total amount would be enough fuel to power the UK for two decades. BP and Kosmos are planning a 30-50 year development in the field. The gas fields were initially discovered after three exploration wells were drilled by Kosmos Energy. Research and past exploration of the area has suggested the presence of hydrocarbon materials along the continental margin of West Africa due to the unique tectonic landscape created by a continental rift in the late Cretaceous era around 66 million years ago. In 2015, Kosmos Energy’s first exploration well - Tortue-1 - made the initial discovery that opened up the potential of the Greater Tortue Gas fields, with a find of 117 metres of net hydrocarbon pay.
The field development of SNE requires a total investment of $5.83bn for three phases. The three phases of SNE field have established the potential to recover approximately 460 million barrels of crude oil reserves and 1 billion cubic feet of natural gas reserves. Unlocking SNE’s reserves will not only provide the first crude oil production for Senegal but also form a base for developing other discoveries, FAN, FAN South and SNE North, in the Sangomar Deep Block, promoting Senegal to West Africa’s new oil economy. The government of Ghana is reported to share its experience in the effective management of hydrocarbon resources, which has been gained since the discovery of the Jubilee field in 2007. Another deepwater asset is the Tortue oilfield, a giant deepwater gas field straddling the border of Senegal and Mauritania. The field will be commercialised in phases. Subsea wells would be connected to an FPSO moored in shallow water 80 kilometres away. In this project, condensate would be stripped and sold for export. Lean gas from the FPSO would be sent to a hub/breakwater structure, another 30 kilometres away. The hub is located 10 kilometres from shore and will provide mooring for a floating LNG (FLNG) vessel and LNG tankers. It is estimated that the offshore fields could hold as much as 50 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas, plus up to one billion barrels of oil in deepwater reserves. This is spread over an area of 33,000 square kilometres (12,750 square miles). In terms of gas, this matches the entire amount currently produced by all of Africa in 18
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Two more exploration wells confirmed a wider productive field area and demonstrated that Tortue West held a large, simple gas field. Going upward, 18 major oil finds had been made in Angola. One discovery that went wrong was Shell’s Bengo Field in Block 16. Bengo-1 tested 1,780 barrels per day in one reservoir, the first discovery in deepwater Angola. Shell’s initial enthusiasm about the structure was restrained by the well’s high gas cap and pancake thin reservoirs, but the company was willing to risk an early production. The enthusiasm died when Bengo-2 turned out to miss even the thin bed that was of such keen interest in Bengo-1. Incidentally, the Bengo story had defined Shell’s involvement in deepwater Angola. Whereas other companies: Elf, Chevron, Exxon, even BP Amoco, went on to make discovery after giant discovery, Shell got trapped in a run of ill luck, having drilled nine wells in Block 16, most with marginal results. In Congo (Brazzaville), sub Saharan Africa’s third largest oil producer, the country has intensified its campaign to promote its offshore drilling and exploration investment opportunities. The Ministry of Hydrocarbons of the country hopes to ride on the new hydrocarbons regulations that were approved by Parliament in 2016 to attract interest from more new international oil companies and entice expansion of drilling, exploration and production by those already operating in the country that produces 350,000 barrels per day (bpd) and has previously attracted international explorers such as Total S.A., Eni, Perenco, Kosmos and SOCO. The country recently unveiled the
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second licensing round for 10 offshore blocks in the Coastal Basin’s offshore shallow water, deep and ultra deep water with interested oil companies having up to June 2019 to submit their bids ahead of the September 2019 evaluation and announcement of the preferred bidders. In Nigeria, French oil company, Total was earlier in the year, awarded an exclusive right by Nigeria and São Tomé and Principe to begin exploration for oil in three blocks - 7, 8 and 11, located within the hydrocarbon-rich Joint Development Zone (JDZ) owned by both countries in the Gulf of Guinea. The right to explore for oil in the JDZ blocks was formally granted to Total after negotiations were concluded and a Production Sharing Contract (PSC) signed by parties involved at a ceremony in Abuja. The JDZ is an area in the region of the Nigeria – São Tomé and Príncipe boundary region speculated to be rich in oil and gas reserves. And, considering that neither country could have explored the resources in the zone without interfering with their maritime rights, they agreed in a treaty to create a Joint Development Authority (JDA) to develop the field and mutually benefit from its resources. The JDZ with regards to this was signed in Abuja on February 21, 2001. Furthermore, highlighting the opportunities in Nigeria and the sub-Saharan Africa deepwater sector, Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), disclosed that there are over $48 billion investment opportunities available in the upcoming capital projects within Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Industry. Reeling out the numerous potentials of Africa’s oil and gas industry, Baru said the continent’s energy outlook was looking positive amid difficult operating and economic headwinds.
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COVER STORY
(ITT) for engineering, procurement and construction contracts for the 150,000 barrels per day development of the Bonga South West Aparo (BSWA) oil field.
He explained that over 41 billion barrels of oil and 319 trillion cubic feet of gas were yet to be discovered in sub-Saharan Africa alone, while between 2008 and 2017, exploratory success in the sub-region was at least 45%. According to him, there has been a surge in the capital expenditure (CAPEX) across Africa’s oil and gas sector, with close to $194 billion earmarked to be spent between 2018 and 2025 on 93 upcoming oil and gas fields in Africa.
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Out of this $194 billion, Nigeria accounts for $48.04 billion (over 24.8%) of the total CAPEX coming into upcoming projects in Africa over 2018 to 2025, with over 20 planned projects,” Baru stated. He observed that 23.8% of the CAPEX in Africa would be spent in Mozambique, 11.3% in Angola while about 29.2% would be spent in Tanzania, Senegal, Mauritania, Uganda, Egypt, Algeria and Kenya combined. Baru informed that with over 14 oil producing countries, Africa currently accounts for 7.5% (126.5 billion barrels of crude oil) and 7.1% (488 TCF of gas) of global proven oil and gas reserves respectively. He maintained that in terms of production, the continent accounted for 8.7% (8.1 million barrels per day) of global oil production and 6.1% (21.8bscfd) of global gas production, even as it consumed 4.0 million barrels of oil per day and 13.7 billion SCF per day of gas (equivalent to 4.1% and 3.9% of global oil and consumption respectively). He stressed that several new frontiers for exploration opportunities abound in Nigeria, even as offshore discoveries in the country have mostly been limited to between 1,000 to 1,500 metres of water depth. “Beyond these water depths, the new frontiers of ultra-deep waters need to be tested. And that is where we need the investors,” Baru said. In addition, major deepwater opportunities in Nigeria, after the Egina project are Shell’s $10 billion expansion of its Bonga field and Eni’s Zabazaba-Etan project. Though both fields are still years away from production, and FIDs are yet to be reached on the projects.
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Over the past 15 years, since around the time that Egina was discovered, a raft of other fields has been added to Nigeria’s potential project lineup. They include the Bosi field, as well as the massive billion-barrel Owowo field, both discovered by Exxon, but still awaiting development. Chevron is working on Nsiko, part of a block that’s over 2,400 meters deep, much deeper than Bonga. In August 2014, through a subsea tie-back to the FPSO, the nearby Bonga North West field, which is capable of producing approximately 75,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day, was unlocked. The Bonga North West field development was named Engineering Project of the Year 2015 at the prestigious Platts Global Energy Awards in New York and represented an important achievement for Nigeria’s deep-water industry. Shell Nigeria is also a co-venture partner in the Erha field, which is operated by the ExxonMobil subsidiary Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Deepwater) Limited. Located 140 km offshore in the Gulf of Guinea at water depths of between 1,200 and 1,800 metres, production commenced in 2006. The Erha FPSO has a production capacity of 210,000 barrels of oil per day. In recent years, the field has expanded production with both the North Phase 2 and 3 projects coming on stream ahead of schedule in 2015 and 2017 respectively. For the Bonga South West Aparo project, after receiving bids in 2015, the project scope was reviewed to significantly reduce cost. In early 2019, following the conclusion of OML 118 negotiations between SNEPCo and the NNPC, a clear commercial framework is in place, supported by the government and project investors, toward a potential Bonga South West Aparo Final Investment Decision. In early 2019, SNEPCo also announced the release of Invitation To Tender
The project’s initial phase includes a new FPSO vessel, more than 20 deep-water wells and related subsea infrastructure. The field lies across Oil Mining Leases 118, 132 and 140, about 15km southwest of the existing Bonga Main FPSO. Seeing the opportunities in the near future, the need to partake in the benefits and retain value within the countries where these fields exist has become more evident. The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board recently organized a workshop, Nigerian Oil and Gas Opportunity Fair, NOGOF where IOCs and independents had to showcase the opportunities in their existing and coming projects in order to accommodate the service sector. Speaking at NOGOF concerning capacities of indigenous service companies to play major roles in the deep offshore space, the Chairman of Petroleum Technology Association (PETAN) Bank-Anthony Okoroafor believes Nigerians will change the narrative and make huge impressions by the level of its participation.
“Once you have ample time and enough information on what projects are on the horizon, capacities that aren’t in-country will be built. The key is involving all stakeholders at the initial stage, which is what we have seen today. “Look at vessels, heavy-duty lay barges, 2000M metric ton cranes: if people are not involved in the early stages with all the components broken down in pieces, how will they participate? You won’t make huge investments without knowing where you are going with it.
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COVER STORY Those are the key things. And this outing will take local content to the next level on deep water.” In the same vein, Patricia Simon-Hart, the Secretary of PETAN posits that deep offshore projects and operations are not strange to indigenous companies because some have made their marks there already. “Indeed indigenous companies have proven their ability to deliver where they have been given the opportunity in some areas of deep offshore projects. PETAN companies are currently providing services in this area.
exploration projects, strategic alliances with companies such as Chevron-Texaco, Petrobras and Total SA in places like West Africa, will assist in accessing new drilling techniques. Until 2000, China’s presence in Africa’s oil industry was confined to just Sudan where the state owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) had been a major stakeholder in the Greater Nile Oil Project Company (GNOPC) alongside Sudan’s Sudapet, Malaysia’s Petronas and the Indian Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) Videsh since 1997.
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Going forward with these new opportunities, we expect that a higher proportion of projects and services will be awarded to indigenous companies as we continue to expand and invest in capacity building.”
She added, “It almost sounds like a question that was asked 25 years ago regarding local companies handling what is now routine for land, swamp and offshore operations. Eventually the opportunities were opened up and indigenous companies proved that they have the capacity to perform and excel. We build capacities. We only need to know the opportunities exist. Advocating for a larger number to be involved she said, “Going forward with these new opportunities, we expect that a higher proportion of projects and services will be awarded to indigenous companies as we continue to expand and invest in capacity building.” From the Far East, China has already started making significant inroads into the sub-Saharan African oil and gas industry, especially in the deepwater segment of the industry. In the space of just a few short years, China has quickly entrenched itself as one of the most active foreign energy players on the African continent. This has to do with the search for more secure oil supplies in the face of static if not declining domestic oil production. While Chinese companies lack technical capacity to tackle ultra-deep oil
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Today, Chinese oil companies are operating in nearly 20 African countries in both the upstream and downstream sectors, and pose a significant strategic and economic challenge to both established majors and smaller independents, which for many years enjoyed unparalleled ascendancy in the continent’s energy sector. In addition, report pointed out that a reprioritization of its energy supply sources, has seen China aggressively enter the offshore oil industry in heavyweight oil producing African countries such as Angola and Nigeria, venturing into high risk areas such as Chad, Sudan, Mauritania, Niger and Equatorial Guinea, and looking for new exploration opportunities in Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar and Uganda. Establishing joint ventures with local state owned oil companies is another facet of Chinese engagement to remain strategically close to political decision makers in the energy arena. This has been evident with joint ventures established with Sudapet (Sudan), Sonatrach (Algeria), Sonangol (Angola) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (Nigeria). Leading the charge into Africa has been the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Sinopec, backed by an array of affiliated groupings including China National Oil and Gas Exploration and Development Corp (CNODC), PetroChina, BGP International, and the China Petroleum Engineering
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& Construction Group (CPECC). They have gone head to head with the world’s largest oil majors in securing oil reserves in offshore deepwater blocks in countries like Angola and Nigeria. Few years back, the Chinese oil company, CNOOC Limited had announced a $2.3 billion purchase of a 45 percent stake in Nigeria’s OML 130 deepwater oilfield. This was CNOOC’s first venture into Africa and the single largest Chinese investment made on the continent at the time. A few months later, Sinopec beat off global competitors to lay claim to oil rich offshore deepwater prospecting blocks in Angola in deals worth $2.4 billion. Generally, it has been stated that an excess of 12 billion barrels of deepwater oil had been discovered in West Africa since deepwater exploration began in Angola in 1994. This figure already equates the Brazilian total of 13 billion barrels of oil. The West African deepwater will continue to be a long-term focus for the oil industry and this would further heighten, as globally significant discoveries continue and successes elsewhere decline. With 211 out of the country’s 390 oil blocks yet to be allocated, Nigeria remains a veritable investment destination for investors looking to stake their funds in the country’s deepwater sector.
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GAS
SEPLAT Makes Giant Strides in Gas Business
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longside its oil business, Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc, a leading indigenous Nigerian oil and gas exploration and production company, has also prioritised the commercialisation and development of the substantial gas reserves and resources identified at its blocks and is today a foremost supplier of processed natural gas to the domestic market in Nigeria. In Oben processing hub (Western Niger Delta) with overall operated gas processing capacity standing at the 525 MMscfd level, the Company is actively engaged with counterparties to increase contracted gas sales with the intention of taking gross production towards the 400 MMscfd level on a consistent basis. Of the 525 MMscfd
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total processing capacity, 465 MMscfd is located at Oben with the remaining 60 MMscfd located at Sapele. The 375 MMscfd expansion at Oben (Phases I and II) was completed by Seplat as a 100 percent investment project. The gas processing capacity expansion is also designed to allow the Company to accept third party gas and receive a processing tariff. This, therefore, is a laudable feat for the Company, which is dually listed on the Main Board of the London Stock Exchange and the Premium Board of the Nigerian Stock Exchange. In 2018 the gas projects undertaken were focused on reducing gas flaring and maximising gas monetisation. Key projects completed in the year include the Oben non-associated gas (NAG) booster compression
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project whereby the installation of additional compressors at the Oben gas plant will boost the pressure of existing NAG wells and translate into higher achievable gas recovery at the Oben gas field. The company also successfully completed the hook-up of a 10 kbpd condensate stabiliser train at the Oben Gas plant to allow for handling of additional condensate production in the future that will accompany higher future gas production. Furthermore, having initiated supplies of commissioning gas to the Azura Edo independent power plant at the start of the year, full operations commenced in May 2018 at which point gross deliveries stepped up to the contracted 116 MMscfd level on a take-or-pay basis.
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GAS
incorporate operational and cost efficiencies. In August 2018, the company signed the Shareholder Agreement and Share Subscription Agreement with the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) whereby NGC subscribed for fifty per cent of the shares in ANOH Gas Processing Company Limited (AGPC), a company that was incorporated in 2017, for the purpose of processing future wet gas production from the upstream unitised gas fields at OML 53 & OML 21, which is operated by Shell.
SEPLAT’s ANOH Gas Project Ushers in Next Growth Phase The Assa North-Ohaji South (ANOH) processing hub (Eastern Niger Delta) at OML 53 (and adjacent OML 21 with which the upstream project is unitised) is expected to underpin the next phase of growth for the gas business and Seplat’s involvement positions it at the heart of one of the largest green field gas and condensate developments onshore the Niger Delta to date. The Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Maikanti Baru, recently said the Corporation was focusing on developing the nation’s gas resources, and: “The Assa NorthOhaji South Gas Development Project is ahead of the other projects. “We have completed the Front End Engineering Design for facilities and pipelines for ANOH and have taken the Final Investment Decision for the project in December 2018 after lingering for many years.” Seplat is well positioned to leverage the experience gained at the Oben gas processing hub to www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
The signed Shareholder Agreement will govern Seplat’s and NGC’s respective interests in the AGPC incorporated joint venture. Other commercial agreements with NNPC and the Nigerian Gas Marketing Company (NGMC) were also executed during a signing ceremony held at NNPC headquarters in Abuja. Subsequent to the 2018 period end, the Seplat Plc board has taken the Final Investment Decision (FID) to proceed with the ANOH project. Company’s fortunes blossom with OMLs 4,38 and 41 licences renewal In November 2 018, Seplat announced that the President and Honourable Minister of Petroleum Resources had given consent for the licence renewal of OMLs 4, 38 and 41 to a new expiry date of 21 October 2038. Seplat holds a 45 per cent working interest in OMLs 4, 38 and 41 and in 2018 production from the licences accounted for 92% of Seplat’s total oil production and 100 per cent of Seplat’s gas production. In connection with the licence renewal, Seplat paid in full a Renewal Bonus of US$25.9 million, thus ensuring all conditions for licence renewal had been met. Business shows fortified financial stamina For 2018, the higher oil production together with higher oil price realisations positively impacted oil revenue which stood at US$590 million. Alongside this, gas revenue reached a new record of US$156 million. Consequently, total revenue
for 2018 was up 65 per cent from 2017 at US$746 million. Operating profit for the year stood at US$310 million and profit before deferred tax of US$238 million. After adjusting for deferred tax of US$91 million net profit after tax stood at US$147 million. Cash flow from operations was US$502 million and capital investments US$88 million. Cash at bank and net cash at year end stood at US$585 million and US$135 million respectively. During the year the NPDC receivables balance was reduced to zero. The Company had successfully concluded a refinancing of the existing US$300 million revolving credit facility (RCF) with a new four-year US$300 million RCF at LIBOR +6% and issued a debut US$350 million bond priced at 9.25 per cent. Proceeds of the refinancing were used to repay and cancel pre-existing indebtedness and also to cash settle crude oil prepayments entered into during 2016 and 2017. The refinancing has enabled the Company to longer date its debt maturities which in turn has freed up significant free cash flow in 2018 and beyond, providing a greater financial resource to reinvest in Seplat’s organic and inorganic growth plans. The bond issuance has also, in particular, diversified Seplat’s long term capital base. In August last year, the bond was listed on the International Securities Market of the London Stock Exchange in addition to the original listing on the Euro MTF market of the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, further raising Seplat’s profile in the international capital markets.
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We have completed the Front End Engineering Design for facilities and pipelines for ANOH and have taken the Final Investment Decision for the project in December 2018 after lingering for many years.”
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INTERVIEW
“Our People Need to Deliberately Take Advantage of Opportunities or Foreign Nationals will” - Okwuosa years ago. T his Law has helped to institutionalize the d e v e l o p m e nt o f sustainable local capacity in the Oil & Gas industry.
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ngr. Emeka Okwuosa is the Chief Executive Officer of Oilserv Group Limited; a sea soned eng i neer, administrator, entrepreneur and a visionary with over 35 years of experience in the following areas: maintenance and operations, teaching, wireline logging and interpretation, seismic acquisition, processing and interpretation, pipeline engineering, procurement and construction (EPCIC), project management, drilling and drilling services. Some of these activities span Europe, North Africa, West Africa, Gulf of Guinea/ Central Africa and Indonesia. Emeka worked in various capacities for Schlumberger in positions that spanned Field Engineer to Technical Manager in the following parts of the World; Europe (Pau, France, Scotland), North Africa (Libya), West Africa (Mauritania, Senegal, Cote D’Ivoire, Ghana), Gulf of Guinea/ Central Africa (Nigeria, Benin Republic, Cameroun, Gabon, Congo and Angola) and Indonesia. Emeka is passionate about development of human capacity in high technology areas of Oil and Gas Industry. This is being achieved via various schemes that have been instituted through the companies that he has founded and runs. Together with other key practitioners in the Oil and Gas Engineering, Exploration and Production sectors, Emeka was instrumental to the enactment of Oil and Gas Local Content Law three 24
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Emeka is the founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of several companies that operate in the oil and gas industry in Africa. While speaking to Majorwaves Energy Report Team, on the sidelines of the Oil and Gas Trainers Association, OGTAN’s Annual Conference and Exhibition in Lagos, Engr. Okwuosa shares his perspective on Nigeria’s energy legislation, inadequate infrastructure and the need for continuous capacity development to take advantage of opportunities available in the Nigerian Oil and Gas sector; Excerpts. Please give us highlights of your panel session at the OGTAN Annual Conference and Exhibition I actually moderated and the presentations were built around the theme which is unlocking Nigeria’s potential through a comprehensive human capital development. It’s about how we develop the country by unlocking the potential of the country. What is potential? You can look at it as our various abilities that are undeveloped, our inabilities to develop these potentials tells you that the potentials mean nothing. Now, by unlocking these potentials we are able to develop our human capacity and then development of human capacity unlocks the potential also, it goes hand in hand and that’s the theme of what we discussed today. Do you think we have the capacity to be unlocked in the first place? MAY- JUNE 2019, Vol 2 No 3
We do have some capacities but the most important thing is that we have to develop these capacities because if we do not systematically develop the capacities, the capacities cannot develop themselves and we’ll end up with a multitude of people that have no skill set to be able to contribute to the economy of the country. They will become an impediment to themselves and the country and will be extremely negative especially in a place like Nigeria where population is ballooning without control. There is a need for us to act quickly. Some may say, it’s too late but I don’t think so. We have to work seriously and that requires putting the right structure in place and making sure the structure works. Because, if you train people and afterwards they are not able to be employed, it’s a problem. Finally, like I said also in the course of the presentation, we have to develop people to be entrepreneurs. This is so because, when people know that they can develop their own businesses, and can create value by using their acquired skill, we tend to build capacity even faster; that’s it. Yours is a success story; virtually everyone in this industry makes references to you for good. We see chains of businesses that you have developed yourself despite the huge infrastructural deficit. How do you advice young entrepreneurs to surmount these hurdles? What I tell them is simple. It starts from your values, the ethics you have. You need to understand that nothing is impossible. Also, you need to accept that, it’s not all the times in the world you will have a ready-made answer to everything. The fact that we have huge gap between where we should be and where we are today creates huge opportunities also.
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INTERVIEW These opportunities ought to be taken advantage of by the citizens of this country; otherwise other nationalities will grab them. There is a complaint and discussion around the influx of Chinese into Nigeria. If you recollect, few years back, Nigerians would visit and buy materials from China to sell here. Today, those Chinese have come in large numbers; they are in our markets, they go to every corner of our society, they set up, they break the rules and compete unfavourably. They are taking away jobs. What does that mean? It means that there are opportunities here that our people are not taking advantage of. Beyond the fact that I know that there are some illegality going on and are not being enforced, purely because we don’t have a system that works in that direction; the fact is about knowing that hard work in the right direction is at the background of every success. Don’t give up when you have opportunities. Opportunities are there, you have to look in the right direction to know they are there. May I give you an example: do you realise today that agriculture alone can employ more than half of the people that are unemployed in Nigeria today? What does it take to start an Agric venture! You don’t need to start it in a way that you are a millionaire overnight. We have a huge population all over and people must feed. There are two things you must do in life, you must breath and eat. Whether you wear clothes or not is irrelevant. Without these two you can’t survive. Fortunately, God gave us air. You don’t have to worry yourself to breath, the day you can’t voluntarily breathe, you are dead. But you have to get food for yourself. There is a reason why God did it that way. That process of you going to get food for yourself helps you develop a skill of survival. From survival, it grows into development of capacity. A lot of things revolve around feeding. I happen to have seen an individual who was trying to launch a cashew business, and I engaged him for over 30 minutes. After my analysis, he accepted he didn’t have to cultivate the cashew. There are other areas along the value chain that would still be lucrative. Cashew nuts were all over the place, people were not picking them. He could set up a processing plant; buy or gather and dry the nuts. The dryness can be measured and industry standard www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
achieved. That is very possible. It will fetch him good money if he puts his mind to it. With the right mindset, irrespective of all the impediments in the society, nobody should give up. Speaking from the angle of knowledge and skill transfer from the aging workforce in the oil and gas industry, do you think we have the right environment that encourages young people to be in the mix? No we don’t have the environment, but it shouldn’t deter us, we also don’t have a government system that encourages employment. It isn’t about the current government or the immediate past. It is a system failure over the past three decades. We have failed to move in the right direction by the structure of government we have, the policies and our so-called constitution that doesn’t encourage growth. You can’t change that overnight. The process of changing it is almost impossible by the constitutional means. But we have to deal with it. Having said that; we don’t give up, because you have to survive and live a life, that means you have to solve problems. A key thrust of this OGTAN conference is about companies collaborating despite these impediments for capacity building. What is the NCDMB today? To some who may not know, a couple of us that worked with Schlumberger in the 1980s came together around 1991 and 1992 and decided to set up Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria, PETAN. After that event, some of us started coming out of Schlumberger to set up our companies, and we were coming from all over the world. One week, we had a meeting led by Ralph Ekezie and proceeded to meet the Group General Manager at NAPIMS, the late Dr. Bayero who later became GMD of NNPC. We demanded any sort of support to back us up in other to have local content, so we won’t be squeezed out of business because at that time, nobody would give you job. They would simply say you are not qualified. Everything went to the multinationals. The banks didn’t even have the capacity to fund you; there was no money. He expressed willingness to support us but explained that the right approach was through a policy as there was no policy to back his support. So he advised us to go to Abuja and talk to the military government.
So, we gathered ourselves and lobbied but nobody listened to us. We never gave up. We continued until we forced NNPC to set up the Nigerian Content Development (NCD) department in NNPC. The lobbying continued until the law was set up. We didn’t give up. Some people that work at NCDMB today may not know this history. When some of us go in there today, they will look at us as though we are foreigners, but we made it happen. I personally wrote the law sections on pipelines. The first thing that came out was that 40 per cent of pipeline jobs on land and swamp should be given to Nigerians but I said NO! I demanded 100 per cent! That’s because we are capable, and that’s how Nigerians started out. My point… we lobby, we don’t give up. You see the opportunity, you push for it. You can’t sit back and get solutions. With Oilserv we have seen the push and steps. We want to know two things; first of all, what’s the next big thing for Oilserv and secondly, what’s the update on the AKK project? It is an ongoing thing. I don’t look at the next big thing in Oilserv. This is about development and development means building capacity to be able to do more projects the same way we normally do with quality and timely delivery without accidents. AKK is moving on smoothly. AKK is a novel project in the sense that it’s the first time a project more than the value of 2. 7 billion dollars is being financed by Nigerians in the private sector. We are going through the process of raising the funds, and you know we can’t raise that finance in Nigeria. We are working on it, and NNPC have been very helpful. They have been working with the contractors, there are two contractors managing this, we believe that in the next few months you will see us on site, thank you
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in spite of constitutional shortcomings, and inadequate infrastructure, we must insist on continuous capacity development to take advantage of opportunities and to transform this nation.”
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LOCAL CONTENT
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INTERVIEW
“LADOL Will Be A Blue Print for Sustainable Industrialization across Africa” – Dr Jadesimi
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O u r b i gg e s t success with the Egina Project was proving to the world that Nigerians are capable”
Dr Amy Jadesimi, CEO LADOL
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my Jadesimi is the CEO of LADOL, a $500 million Industrial Free Zone in Lagos. A commissioner for business and sustainable development commission, she has an MBA from Stanford University, an MA (OXON) and BMBCh from Oxford University. A trained medical doctor from Oxford University, Amy moved from medicine and got financial training at Goldman Sachs and Stanford Graduate School of Business. She was voted the Young CEO of the Year earlier this year by the African Leadership Forum, an Archbishop Tutu Fellow working to reduce maternal mortality. She is also a Young Global Leader (WEF), Rising Talent (Women’s Forum for Economy and Society), 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa (Forbes), a Top 25 Africans to Watch (Financial Times) www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
and was named as one of 2018’s Most Influential People of African Descent (Under 40) Worldwide, in support of the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (UN IDPAD). Also named as one of 50 Influential Women in Business by The Africa Report, Jeune Afrique and the Africa CEO Forum, she is a member, Advisory Board of Prince’s Trust International and contributor to Forbes.
expanding services to sectors outside the oil industry and creating tens of thousands of jobs. Exceprts.
In this interview with Majorwaves Energy Report Editor, Margaret Nongo-Okojokwu; Dr Amy who is overseeing the growth of West Africa’s largest logistics and engineering facility operating in a free trade zone, speaks about how LADOL is utilizing the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICT) Act,
The FIN award was a great honour, I am very humbled that they gave me that award; it’s a really great honour. The reason I was able to win the award is because LADOL is a place where we believe in team work so I didn’t really just accept the award for myself,
Congratulations on being honoured with the FIN award as the leading woman in Oil and Gas in Nigeria. We would like to know what this award means to you as a female CEO in this country; has it helped to change your view about how women are perceived in the Industry?
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INTERVIEW I accepted it for the whole LADOL team, because everything LADOL has achieved, has been achieved through the staff and management many of whom have been with us for over a decade. Now for specifically speaking about women in the Industry, it’s tough, you have to overcome a lot of negative perceptions, I think overtime things are improving and the reason they are improving is because women have proven themselves capable at all levels, but what we have to do now is encourage structural change meaning for women to have true equality and parity with men, we have to make it easier for women to have children and come back into the office, we have to make it more acceptable for a man to take paternity leave, we have to make it possible for per-time working at home. We have women who work per-time, we have women who go on maternity leave, and they are very effective employees. So we have to look at making structural changes within major organizations to enable women to participate in the work place and to enable men to fully participate in the home place. Fantastic! On the part of your recently acquired ISO certifications; we’ve seen that LADOL has gained certifications on three levels now, ISO 45,001 ISO 9001 and ISO 14,001. Again, the LADOL team really engaged and rose to the challenge forgett i n g ou r i nter nat iona l certifications, we got ISO 9001 for the first time last year, we were the first company in north and west Africa to get ISO 45,001 and I want Nigerians to really pause and think about that; that a 100% indigenous Nigerian company is the first company to get that award, it really shows that Nigerian companies are going places and part of the reasons we highlighted is to help change the negative perceptions people have out there about Nigerian companies. Nigerian companies will soon be exceeding international standards and LADOL wants to be part of that. The reason we were able to achieve these standards is all about the team, you cannot get these standards unless you have everybody in the company from the bottom to the top fully aware. We also run a fairly flat structure where we encourage participation, criticism, stop work, everything at all level, so no matter who you are, we want you to feel empowered when you are working at LADOL and that’s how we achieve excellent 28
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standards and also it’s important to embrace local content. People talk about local content often because it’s a requirement, a legal and necessary requirement but its more than that, local content is actually the key to business success and we also want to highlight the fact that we were only able to get these certifications because we have a high number of trained Nigerian staff who are working with us, who have been with us for years and who will continue with us, and that local content is what distinguishes us and gives us competitive edge not just in Nigeria, but in the whole of West Africa. How has that affected your business, I mean these certifications; has it changed anything so far? Well, the certification is an outcome of changes that we have already been making in the business over the past decade. LADOL has always been focused on making sure that we run an operationally efficient, transparent and compliant organization and that is because from inception our chairman and founder realized that we needed to have these processes in place in order to be successful. I always tell people that the really successful people are actually like me, very geeky. You spend a lot of time in your office, you spend a lot of time doing paper work, being successful at business involves embracing the mundane, what I mean by that is you have to really amass yourself amidst policies and procedures, you have to look at the detail of work instructions, how things are done, why they are done in a certain way and that is the key to success. So from inception that’s the kind of company we were; and it also means that we were able to scale up very quickly, because once you have a foundation, there is space in having the correct procedures in place you could scale up and add people and all facilities, and add infrastructure very quickly without affecting the quality of the work that you are producing. So are we expecting to see LADOL get listed on the London stock exchange or any stock exchange any time soon? We are planning to list, that is not in the near term, we are looking at that more as a medium term, maybe in the next two to three years, but we always had this thing as one of the things that we were going to do when the company reaches the right stage.
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Looking at Local Content in Nigeria, we are aware that LADOL is one of the companies that have benefitted in the application and implementation of the NOGICT Act, Now in its ninth year, what do you think about the Act, are there areas that you think should be improved upon, are there things that you think the board should know and do something about? I think that the Local Content Act has already changed the landscape for the oil and gas industry and its had such a positive impact, one of the first things we need to look at is how to spread that beyond the Petroleum sector to other sectors, to the manufacturing sector, the technology sector, the fine art sector. So the benefits of local content when it’s properly applied and strictly enforced, to the economy are second to none. In other words having correct local content could push our economy into the G-20 just as it did for Brazil. As we sit here today, year on year we’ve seen the NCDMB, (the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board) improve and increase the standard so when we started the EGINA there was nowhere in Nigeria where you could do integration and fabrication because of the local content Board mandating that such a facility be built and including it in Total’s contract, we now have that capacity, and having that capacity in LADOL makes Nigeria the Hub for the whole of West Africa for integration and that gives us the highest lifting capacity in the whole of Africa and all of that has come from local content. And what’s the benefit to Nigeria? The benefit to Nigeria would be the creation of fifty thousand jobs and billions of dollars of new investments coming into the country, a lot of that investment will be by private indigenous Nigerians, but on the back of that private indigenous Nigerian investment, we will now see international investments and most importantly we will see more domestication or not just petroleum sector projects but works projects, railway projects, textile projects, agricultural projects. More and more of these industrial activities can now be done here, thanks to the facilities and infrastructure built through the local content Act. That’s when it’s linked to other industries right?
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INTERVIEW Well, it’s already there. So for example the yard that we have in LADOL can already be used for other industries so we can build for the railway sector today using the infrastructure that we built for EGINA. So as one who benefited and participated in the EGINA project, what do you think is the impact of local content on deep water operations in Nigeria? When the Vice president visited LADOL last year, the Managing Director of Shell spoke and he explained the importance of the enabling environment that the government has put in place, having an enabling playing field and antimonopoly policies in place, he explained the benefits that shell will be getting from operating as with LADOL and in a nutshell he said they will get 40% cost savings by operating out of LADOL and those cost savings come from the enabling environment which included our lowing and monopoly which allowed LADOL to participate in the market on the one hand and on the other hand, it comes from the almost two decades investments that is almost 20 years of investments that LADOL has made, building a facility, acquiring equipments and training a Nigerian team that can work 24/7 and by having that high level of local content in a highly specialized deep offshore logistics space, we are able to halve the cost for deep offshore production and exploration support. By halving the cost, you are doubling the return, so you are now making Nigeria competitive with Brazil and with other parts of the world and you are attracting more investment and on the back of the cost savings that shell gets from operation out of LADOL, they now have approval to go ahead with the BONGA South West project which will be approximately 10 Billion dollars of investment. So local content leads to cost savings, leads to investment, leads to more job creation, leads to more cost savings, so you create a venturous circle and that’s how you now have an exponential impact on the country’s GDP and you can see a country like Nigeria. Honestly if we continue the way we’re going now, within the next ten years we could be entering the G20, we just have to stay the course, we have to make sure that projects that can be done in Nigeria are done in Nigeria, and we have to build year on year on investments that we’ve made, that’s very important. www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
Brilliant! So what are the innovations on going right now in LADOL, would you say LADOL stands out as one of the most preferred destination for deep offshore logistics at the moment? I think for deep offshore logistics support, LADOL is the only official deep offshore logistics base in West Africa I believe. The reason we’ve been able to do that is because of the massive upfront investment we’ve made in infrastructure, facilities and people. In terms of innovation, we are now heavily focused on sustainability, so we are leveraging our relationships in the petroleum sector to diversify into other sectors and to make all our clients operate sustainably. So sustainably means local employment, it means clean technology, it means supporting gender equality. There is a wide range of sustainability matrix that we measure ourselves against and these are all tied into the United Nations sustainable Development Goals. So LADOL has been able to be successful, because we are indigenous Nigerians, because we believe in high levels of local content, because we believe in long term investment into our own infrastructure, into our facilities, into our own people and what we want to do now is to show other people that success so that more investments can come and more LADOLs can be developed and ultimately, LADOL will be a blue print for sustainable industrialization across Africa.
pledge. As we develop the zone, we are bringing in a cleaner technology solutions for how we manage water, waste and power. So Going from LNG to Solar, we’re using as much as water and waste as possible and using waste energy solutions. So if you are a tenant in LADOL, you will automatically be part of a sustainable environment, but we want you to sign the pledge so that your own operations within whatever field you’re specialized in within the free zone are also as sustainable as possible, that’s something you will improve year on year, and finally both for ourselves and the community, training is paramount, so our upstream academy will be opening later this year providing training for our own staff is something which is engrained in everything we do, a lot of what we do at LADOL has never been done in Nigeria before so obviously a lot of training is required. But also training and sensitization of our surrounding, of ourselves, and our extended families and our community, in terms of sustainability for their environment, for their families for their homes, it’s also very useful, and these are things which yield a positive return not just for the communities, the people we’re investing in but for ourselves as well because sustainability always creates the venturous circle where people end up benefiting from it. It creates a win win-win if you like. Cont on page 32
Still in the spirit of sustainability, recently you have been involved in a lot of development work, you are an Ambassador for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), how are you replicating these Goals in LADOL and how do they reflect on your host communities around you? So for us, all of our internal management systems are based around specific targets and goals and those targets and goals are formed around our vision and mission. Our vision and mission in summary is to build a sustainable industrial free zone and to replicate that concept across Africa, to sustainably industrialize Africa. And depending on which department and which project we are working on, that will be reflected in different ways; from the planning to the execution stage of every activity in LADOL, sustainability is at its core. Within the free zone, we also are putting together a pledge, so that all of the tenants and clients within the zone will also sign up to that
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PHOTO GALLERY
INDUSTRY ENGAGEMENTS
Dr Ibe Kachikwu in Saudi Arabia, signs MOU with Saudi Aramco and the Saudi Government on infrastructural Investments In Nigeria.
Executive Secretary, Engr. Simbi Wabote and the Chief Operating Officer, Refineries and Petrochemicals of the NNPC, Mr. Anibor Kragha in Riyahd, Saudi Arabia.
TOTAL’S CEO, Patrick Pouyanne On A Courtesy Call To Nigerian Government
Vice President of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN receiving the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Total, Mr. Patrick Pouyanne during a visit to the State House, Abuja.
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Honorable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu was in attendance during the visit
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OGTAN ACE 2019
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INTERVIEW That’s true. So coming to EGINA; what is the most fascinating bit of your accomplishment of this project, and what part of it was of immense concern to you until you surpassed it? I think the biggest concern we had was whether or not the FPSO would come because that was outside our control, but in the end, I am pleased to say Total really stood up for Nigeria and insisted that the FPSO must come to LADOL and that it must be integrated in Nigeria, so that was really the toughest part of the project; and now that that has happened, Total will go down in history as the Oil company that changed the direction of Local Content and gave us a leg up, unto a level of Local Content that can now lead us to joining the G20, because now that we have proven that the FPSO can be birth, it opens up a whole new world for fabrication that can be done locally, engineering that can be done locally, we should try more investment into fabrication in the country, and that’s something that we’ve tried to explain to people; when we talk about creating 50,000 jobs, 45,000 of those jobs would be outside LADOL. So what we want to do at LADOL is be the aggregator, but we need something to aggregate. So across the country, there were four other facilities that were upgraded as a result of Egina, they upgraded five facilities plus LADOL. Those other facilities also need to be fully utilized and the facilities in the country need to be fully utilized. And since we now know that any piece of fabrication you do in Nigeria, will be integrated in Nigeria, as in it will no longer be taken to the other side of the world but will stay in Nigeria, it creates a huge economic incentive to maximise how much we do in Nigeria. So we are going from an era Pre-Egina where people will be maximizing the level of fabrication they do locally to a post-Egina era, people are maximizing the level of fabrication and engineering they do because they know it can be integrated in LADOL. In terms of the biggest success, I think the biggest success was proving to the world how talented Nigerians are, talking about Nigerian engineers, welders, as well as Nigerian HSE staff. In other words, the way in which the local staff working in the yard in LADOL stepped up was above international standards; the expectations at the beginning 32
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were low, the main contractor at the beginning of the job initially brought their country nationals but NCDMB stepped in and said they didn’t need third country nationals, and when they eventually replaced them with Nigerians, the Nigerians exceeded international standards. So that’s really important because having the facility is really half the battle, we also need to have Nigerians who can do the work. So we’ve proven that not only do we have the facility where you can do the work physically, that you can as well bring the largest project in Nigeria; we’ve already proven that Nigerian staff can also improve the quality of the standards in terms of the quality of their work, which is so important and it’s something am so proud of. What are you doing with your upgraded facilities at the moment? We’ve heard of how other contractors laid off a huge number of staff as a result of lack of wok after the Egina project. Are you also taking that route?
what other investments do you have or are expecting to have on your facility? Well we know that Bonga SouthWest is coming, the tender for Bonga South-west is already out, so I think everybody is looking forward to that. At the same time, we are also looking at a range of other projects. As I said, this isn’t an oil and gas facility, this is an industrial facility. So we are also talking to Agricultural companies, we’re talking to car manufacturers, we’re talking to people who do general works to see if we can also use the facility for them.
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I think that the Local Content Act has already changed the landscape for the oil and gas industry and its had such a positive impact, one of the first things we need to look at is how to spread that beyond the Petroleum sector to other sectors”
What we’re actually doing right now is studying all the staff that worked on Egina to see who we can bring on board as permanent staff. We are also in discussions with all the potential clients so we can start to build up another group of work. Because you’re absolutely right, what we need is consistent work so that we can keep Nigerians perpetually employed, and that’s exactly what we’re talking to the government about as well. That since such facilities over time have been upgraded, we have to make sure that these facilities have long term contracts in place. That would mean that the government gets a Return from upgrading these facilities, and that would mean that you have perpetual employment for Nigerians and it will lower the cost of doing business in Nigeria, which increases the attractiveness of Nigeria as an area for investment, project execution which brings in more investments, lowers the cost, creates more employment, and we go on like that. So it’s important that upgraded facilities be used and we on our side are making sure we have our people in place, standards in place and are already in discussion with clients and putting several contracts in place to keep the Nigerians perpetually employed. Now that Egina has come and gone,
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LASER ENGINEERING & RESOURCES CONSULTANTS LIMITED Laser Engineering and Resources Consultants Limited is a Nigerian (indigenous) Company that renders services to the industry. Laser was registered in 1990 and has her roots in the university. OUR VISION To transform Laser to enduring organization that utilizes available resources in solving the intellectual aspects of the problems in the oil and gas industry OUR MISION Provide excellent services to clients Add to local content by developing and encouraging use of indigenous resources Develop work ethics that ensures protection of life, property and environment Train Nigerian youths by learning. OUR MILESTONE ACHIEVEMENTS First mercury free PVT Laboratory in Nigeria Introduced Petrel to Nigerian market First indigenous company to successfully complete a field simulation study with FDP for an IOC First in Petroleum Engineering and Geosciences Human Capital Development in Nigeria Revolutionalized Welltest Analysis and supervision in Nigerian oil and gas Industry Developed the Geoscience Programme for National Board for Technical Education First Commercial Geosciences Skill Acquisition Center (Laser Petroleum Geosciences Training Centre
MANPOWER DEVELOPMENT & PETROLEUM GEOSCIENCES TRAINING CENTRE
PVT LABORATORY SERVICES
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT LABORATORY SERVICES
Training Specialization Includes:
Special Core Analysis Data Management
Geology, Geophysics and Petrophysics Reservoir Engineering Production Engineering Well Construction / Drilling Engineering Surface Operations Petroleum Business & Soft Skills HSE
Field Sampling PVT Study of Subsurface Oil Sample, subsurface/ recombined Volatile Oil Sample, Condensate Reservoir Fluid and dry g as Sample etc. Crude Oil Distillation Finger Printing Flow Assurance
OUR SERVICES SLICKLINE SERVICES
ENVIRONMENTAL LABORATORY SERVICES
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Geological/Static Modeling Petrophysical Study Reservoir Simulation Well Test Analysis Reserve Estimation Study
aqueous discharge, Rain water, River, sanitary wastewater, etc
HEAD OFFICE; Km 5 East/ West Road, (Behind Omega House), Rumuodara, Port Hacourt, Rivers State, Nigeria LAGOS OFFICE: 9A, Ologolo Road, Off Lekki-Epe Expressway, (By Agungi Bus Stop) Lekki, Lagos State, Nigeria
BHP Test Well Integrity test Wax Cutting SCSSV Retrieval & Installation Gas lift Valve Retrieval & Installation Zone Change, Bottom Hole Sampling, etc.
Prof. M.O. Onyekonwu Managing Cosultant md@laser-ng.com 08033103628
BENIN OFFICE: 2, Aviele Street, GRA, Benin City, Edo State, Nigeria
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Mrs. Joy Ugochukwu-Okoro General Manager Services joy.ugochukwu-okoro@laserng.com 08037111776
+ 234(0) 70 65684628 + 234(0) 70 84347959
info@laser-ng.com Engr. E. Ekworomadu General Manager Lagos Office ezekiel.o.ekworomadu@laser-ng.com 08035101298
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Local Content Champions Prior to the 2015 global economic downturn in the oil industry, African countries had experienced a decade of consistent economic growth, often propelled by high commodity prices, yet half the continent’s population still lives in poverty. Even if rising demand for raw materials from the booming cities of China and India, among others, has driven growth in Africa’s mining sector, most of the continent has not yet translated mineral wealth into industrialization and widespread economic development. Most African countries continue to export raw materials and then pay a premium to import the products made with them. This cuts across from oil industry, through solid minerals and other natural resources. The deliberate push by some governments to see true value retention in the economies where these minerals are mined has evolved with success stories being registered in different areas: upstream, mid and downstream of the oil industry. In Nigeria, the NOGICD Act which is the local content legislation, has seen service companies and multinationals seize and give daring opportunities respectively in such a way that rare capacities and capabilities have been built. It has translated to in-country value retention where skills and technical know-hows have been transferred to indigenous companies. Livelihood of families are affected positively as rare jobs are created, capital flight reduced, country’s GDP positively impacted, foreign earnings improved, linkage industries fortified and gradual progress to industrialization strengthened. The impact isn’t overwhelming in a population with huge infrastructural deficit like Nigeria but we must recognise progress and the actors playing critical roles in these companies. Here is a sneak peek on our conversation with some local content champions.
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LOCAL CONTENT CHAMPIONS
‘Collaboration Is the Pathway to Distinguished Accomplishments’ - Uzu
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ngr. Obidike Nelkon Uzu is the CEO, Global Process & Pipeline Services Limited (GPPS), a leading process and pipeline service company in Nigeria, Incorporated in the year 2000 under the Companies and Allied Matters Acts of Nigeria and began full operations in 2010. Engr. Uzu has more than 26year’s oil field experience in drilling operation (Sedco Forex), production technology (SPDC) and Process and Pipeline Service (B.J Services) and has supervised many successful projects in Nigeria, America and the Uk. In an interview with Margaret Nongo-Okojokwu at the just concluded Nigerian Oil and Gas Opportunity Fair (NOGOF), Engr. Uzu speaks about the strength of collaboration as being the strongest factor behind his growing recognition and awards. Excerpts: Congratulations on your award at NOGOF. In recent times, we have seen you winning lots of awards and are often termed ‘most innovative indigenous company in Nigeria’, how have you been able to stay on top of your game in spite of our huge infrastructural gaps? Honestly, we have achieved this feat as a team, it’s not just me, but Global Process and Pipeline Services Limited as a company, as the name suggests, we are a group of Nigerian experts that came together to start off this business and that way you can see the benefits of enormous collaboration among many people, which is what this local content drive is all about. It’s not about everybody setting up his own company; we can’t build capacity that way. Just because we collaborated, it has become easier for us to build capacity and grow during all these difficulties we all are seeing. The efficiency you are seeing today is as a result of the capacity and capability we have built to manage limited resources. Everywhere in the world, there are limited resources, so being able to manage and harness them is what is required. And that’s what has been working for us, that as of today we are not really
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indebted that much because we have been using our ingenuity, acquired while working for a lot of these multinationals, to grow our business. Which is what we are asking a lot of other Nigerian companies to do, not just pride themselves as a Nigerian company, saying ‘I am capable of doing this and that’, just do the work and do it very well, even better than any of your competitors, do it to meet international standards, and that’s when you’ll be patronized. That’s what we are doing today. Last year December, you expanded your facility, what’s the drive for that? Was it in line with your capacity expansion agenda? Yes. You know that facility was built to improve our infrastructure and the work environment, for instance, we bought some equipment at that time and to be able to keep them, we needed a workshop, a proper inventory for space, which is the reason for that expansion. It was built to be able to deliver more superior services to our clients, and that’s why we did it. Has there been any improvement since the expansion? Yes there has been enormous patronage from our clients and even some who just heard about us through the media at that time and try to source from us and luckily for us most of these new clients that came are now hooked up and we are doing newer projects and more projects with them, which wouldn’t have been; because ordinarily they didn’t know us. It was a kind of advertisement for us also and we got some mileage as a result. What’s your take about the gas master plan and how best do you think the goals set by the government can be achieved? Yeah, on the gas master plan, I have a different thinking because
honestly, having been in this business for almost 28 years I realised that there is a missing link, and that link is transportation. We have about 40 trillion cubic feet of gas, fine, that’s inside the ground or the well head, we need so and so megawatts of power for homes and other industrial utilities that can use gas to power which is the market. From the well or the ground to the gas plant and transmitting this power to people’s homes is the missing link, that’s the potential and that’s what all Nigerians are craving for. So investing in infrastructure or pipeline, how do we get gas into Abuja so that every home in Abuja would have electricity, that is what we should be thinking about, that is the master plan that is very realistic and would be very impactful, so how do we get lights to industrial parks to power every home and drive the industrial revolution? That is the benefits of the gas master plan, I don’t believe in the euphoria of making nice statements to please everybody, until the basics are right, the results can’t be right. Until we go back and say ‘on this value chain, what is missing? What do we need to do to tie it together? We need so and so amount of electricity. The gas plant in Afam is not operating more than 30% of its capacity there; meanwhile the people living in Port Harcourt don’t have light. The plant has already been propelled; meanwhile there is gas in obigbo. So we should be able to explain what the problem really is.
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LOCAL CONTENT CHAMPIONS The market is there craving for gas, the gas is in Obigbo craving for buyers, the gas plant is also there craving for more gas to generate power and in the mist of all this, the situation is not being addressed properly because there is a huge bottle neck of government interference on the process, the pricing policy. The people producing the gas says ‘look the price is not attractive for us’, the gas plants says ‘we need more gas to generate more power’; every segment are giving excuses. So harmonise it and say what do we need to do so the guy who is producing would get a fair deal and the guys generating would get a fair deal as well? The same thing is happening in the power sector today, you realise there is a huge amount of money the DisCos or GenCos are not getting. Everybody consuming electricity in Nigeria needs to pay a fair price, some people are paying, and others are not and sometimes they over charge the guy who is actually paying, to pay for what he did not consume; so that’s the problem.
“We have an ultimate goal of becoming a global pipe and metals solution partner to the Oil and Gas industry”
So it’s not necessarily a ‘willing buyerwilling seller’ thing? No, it hasn’t gotten to that level where it being driven by market forces yet, it’s still at the regulatory stage, it’s not a market force driven concept yet. Looking at the Nigerian content Act, now in its ninth year, what can you say about its implementation so far and how do you think we can improve? Honestly, I am very impressed with the recent drive for local content, they are now invoking the Act as a law to the IOCs and all the players, that this is the rule and you must follow the rules and that is pushing everybody to abide by it. There has been bundles of excuses given in the past, like it can’t be done in Nigeria, there is no infrastructure and the likes, some of all these excuses were genuine, but a lot of them were propaganda to ensure we don’t get on our own. I have worked for multinationals for more than 20 years and I know the kind of perception they have of community workers. But the local content Act has made it mandatory that some portion of work can’t be given to companies from overseas again but someone from the community, so as to domicile that capability and that’s the way to sustainably grow local content. We need the local content Act to get a stronger monitoring as commissioned and in terms compliance, I think we should grow. 36
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olomon Ewanehi is the Group CEO of Solewant Group, a pipe/metals fabrication and coating company that provides Pipe, Metal and Field joints Coating services in support of Oil, Gas, Water, Chemical processing, Mining, refining, electric utility, transportation and marine industries. As a beneficiary of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act, Mr. Ewanehi speaks with Majorwaves Energy Report on the impact of the Act on his business as well as recommended ways of improving on its implementation. Excerpts. What is your assessment of the implementation of the NOGICD Act today? I would say the implementation of the NOGICD Act is commendable; there is presently an increase in the volume and value of local companies’ participation in the oil and gas sector projects and contracts. Before now, indigenous companies could talk about these kind of opportunities that the present indigenous oil and gas industries have, but now our mettle have been shown in the services we have rendered in the industry by virtue of the NOGICD Act. The board has since 2013 tenaciously followed up on the guidelines issued by them to ensure the achievement of the goals of that law, and with the emergence of the Nigerian Oil & Gas Opportunity Fair (NOGOF) and other joint activities with stakeholders in the industry, the board looks set to achieve greater things Can you recommend ways you think the NDCMB can improve on this mandate? Well So far so good. However improvements will come as more awareness is created. Indeed the Act came into existence some nine years ago but not many of the players in the industry are aware of the full provisions. Awareness is a key component to improving the implementation of the Act by the NCDMB. MAY- JUNE 2019, Vol 2 No 3
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LOCAL CONTENT CHAMPIONS
Are there challenges you face as a company and think government can look into to help companies in similar situation like yours? It is important to note that the implementation of the Act is methodologically aimed at placing the ownership of key oil and gas assets in the hands of Nigerians but to some extent, this has not been so. This is where the NCDMB need to fully come in as the sole agency of government responsible to ensure broad compliance and dispel the fears in the industry that local content implementation is another toll gate so as to win the trust of industry stakeholders. We also need to keep the perception of this Act as that of support and assistance, so that every stakeholder in the industry, whether NCDMB or the indigenous oil and gas companies or even the IOCs would have a sense of belonging and own the Act. What ways are you improving in capacity building at Solewant in order to take advantage of the opportunities unraveled at NOGOF? B a s ic a l ly, NO G O F of fer s opportunity to meet with the IOCs and major EPC Companies and business opportunities pop up at the fair. We have always been participating and were one of the sponsors at the Akwa Ibom edition, as well as the one that held in Bayelsa state two months ago. We have an ultra modern multilayer pipe coating plant, Concrete weight coating plant and state of the art laboratory with a collection of international standard workforce made up of both local and expatriates personnel, experts in the area of the solutions that we offer to the industry. We also have satisfactorily executed and delivered major projects on schedule and within budget to project owners and we are ready for any opportunity that will come from the just concluded NOGOF. What is the next big news we hope to hear from Solewant in the nearest future? What are your thoughts on regional integration?
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Of course you are aware that we have installed an ultra-modern multilayer pipe coating plant, Concrete weight coating plant and Solewant state of the art Laboratory in Nigeria. We also have an LSAW pipe milling, to be installed and commissioned by EU plant equipment Manufacturers. The steel pipe manufacturing and metals fabrications projects are in our hands, which will manifest very soon. We have an ultimate goal of becoming a global pipe and metals solution partner to the Oil and Gas industry. On the issue of regional integration, we have started putting out our feet in the continents as we cannot overlook the fact that we must get our services to the length and breadth of Africa as a way of supporting infrastructural development and capacity building. We have been engaging with the users and distributors of our products and solutions that we offer in sub Saharan Africa region.
Why do you think Solewant should be sought after by the IOCs and independents above other companies? What makes you tick?
offshore projects, first class EU manufactured plant equipment. The local content Act was enacted to bridge the gap in the inadequate local capacity in the Oil and Gas industry, particularly in the areas of in-country value addition and production in the Oil and Gas sector. Our ultra-modern plants in our industrial area provides a strong African presence as Nigeria is in the forefront of West African development whose major Oil and Gas facilities are presently being installed. Tell us your human capacity plan/ project in the next couple of years. Solewant Group has a policy of training and retaining her workforce, we carry out customized trainings, capacity building and linkage programs. Our workers, because of our peculiar and proprietary services, are trained both locally and internationally to man our state-of-the-art coating plant; it is important that we have a workforce that is technically versatile and with regards to the requirements of the IOCs and other stakeholders, various international certification that are industry requirements are constantly updated to meet future requirements.
We all know that successful Oil and Gas product management depends on identifying the needs and wants of the IOCs and other project owners. Presently, some upcoming deep offshore projects require high tech products and services because of the nature of the terrain where these pipeline facilities are being installed. We boast of very reliable and efficient solutions in a way that is even better than what our competitors offer. Solewant Group is strategically positioned to provide Oil and Gas companies the unique pipes, metals, fabrication solutions and pipe coating solutions that help our clients deliver quality projects on schedule and within budget. For instance, apart from our stateof-the-art pipe coating laboratory located at our industrial area, our multi-layer pipe coating plant is designed to provide pipe double joint coating solutions for deep
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ENERGY WOMAN
‘As a woman, you have to put in extra effort in this Industry’ – Bukola Adubi things power. What’s your engineering background and where did you study?
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rs Bukola Adubi is the Chief Operating Officer of MicCom Cables and Wires Ltd, In this interview with JEROME ONOJA, she extols the Nigerian Content law and couldn’t hide her excitement particularly as she narrates the level of support from the NCDMB. Excerpts: Tell us about MicCom. MicCom is the first fully indigenous Nigerian cable manufacturer and it has been in existence since 1978. We are 40 years and counting. We have harnessed our strength in the industry and have grown to be one of the biggest manufacturers in Nigeria today. Michael and Comfort Ponnle, who are also my parents, started MicCom at the time and they are very much retired now. I am second generation carrying the mantle with the hope of continuing to cement the name “MicCom” in the minds of all as it pertains to all www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
I am not an Engineer by profession; I am actually a Pharmacist, with a Masters degree. However, over the last 20 years I have worn several hats and been involved in several businesses, equipping myself along the way. I have a degree from the University of Manchester and also a diploma from Cornell University, USA. This is also a family business and so I have been in an engineering domain by default from birth I would say and so I am well versed about the systems and process to allow me stand alongside any professional engineer as well as run the factory. Do you sometimes feel intimidated being in a male dominated sector? Absolutely not, instead I feel that my colleagues are very much intrigued by me and also very supportive. Unfortunately, it is a male-dominated industry and you have to be seen and so you have to put in that extra effort but apart from that, to manage this type of business as a woman is not impossible. I am currently the only female chief operating officer in the industry today and this makes me stand out quite a bit. When you have a full grasp of the business, it is very easy to add value to the process and people tend to listen to you. It’s definitely been a very interesting journey. How has the company been faring?
We have done pretty well over the last few decades. We’ve grown from humble beginnings to become one of the biggest manufacturers today. Up until about two years ago we functioned very strongly only in the Power sector servicing segments like the government, corporate entities, construction companies and major M& E companies. We have deliberately removed ourselves from the retail market because we realised very quickly this is where the challenges of adulteration begins. We do not have distributors in the major markets like Alaba, but we do have locations outside of our factory that we control to be sure the customer is getting the right product. We believe the integrity of our brand is more important to us than any promise of revenue and we take extra care to ensure that brand equity we have garnered over the years is not eroded in any way. What is your take on the Nigerian Local Content law? The Local Content Act is probably one of the best decisions our legislation has taken on behalf of the country in the last few years. It would appear like that tiny piece of law was enacted for companies such as ours to help us garner in-road into an otherwise very difficult industry to enter into. Today, the advantage and leverage we have through this law has been immeasurable. The team at the NCDMB has been very supportive. They are quick to assist and are always carrying us on their shoulders. They do so because we are fully indigenous, we have a name associated with quality and we seemed to have arrived late for the party and so they are very eager to encourage us get to where we should be. And for this, we are eternally grateful.
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ENERGY WOMAN
Our only prayer is that the law should be expanded to cover not just the oil & gas industry but the other sectors as well, especially construction and power industries where at the moment there is no control over importation of cables. Players in that sector willfully import cables that the local industry should be manufacturing and supplying. It is a well known fact that made in Nigeria cables is one of the best in the world due to the quality assurances they offer, encouraging us manufacturers can only lead to better infrastructure, more employment and higher leverage across board for all parties. When this law is allowed to cover all industries, Nigeria is the only one that will benefit and profit from it in the long run.
Our people are trained locally and in-house and sometimes, some of them go outside the country for special trainings. We have people who have worked with us for 20 to 30 years in the system. They transfer their skill set through internal trainings. But in keeping abreast with evolving specifications and standards we also organise retraining and in-house updating of processes.
Has it substantially impacted the bottom line?
What’s the next big thing from MicCom?
For me, it is not so much of the revenue, but the kind of people that are suddenly interested in knowing more about us. That’s the exciting part. Talking to the heavy players in the industry and sitting at the table to discuss possible impacts and value addition – that’s the most important thing for me at this time. Money would always follow. People get confused when I tell them; I’m not into this for the money. I don’t think it should be about money anymore but value addition. Everything else will follow. We are already thinking expansion. There are a few companies that have approached us and want to invest in us. These are signs of big things to come.
We are continuous work in progress at this time. We are talking on a few big projects on the horizon and we have positioned ourselves for some of them. We are also vested towards upgrading and investing in major infrastructure overhaul. So all I can say is ‘watch this space!!!”
Our factory is very hands-on and what we insist on is that whenever we acquire new machinery, our engineers learn virtually everything about it. This comes handy as they are then able to provide in-house solutions if there’s a major machine breakdown. They learn to think outside the box.
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The NCDMB have been very supportive. The Executive Secretary, his team is quick to assist and is always carrying us on their shoulders.” Bukola Adubi
How do you train your engineers? Naturally, Nigerians are very intelligent people and over the years we, as a country, have underestimated our capabilities.
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LOCAL CONTENT CHAMPIONS
FMES is rapidly changing the Narrative for Offshore Logistics Services. We are already looking at expending by building a new logistics base in Warri. - Chief Penawou
offshore services around the area. What is unique about this? I believe there are other companies that are offering the same services. Why are you different?
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irst Marine and Engineering Services Limited (FMES) is a wholly Nigerian company that is into engineering, procurement and construction, as well as drilling, dredging and logistics services Barely one year after FMES launched its logistics base, strategically positioned along the Oxbow River for onshore &offshore services in Yenagoa Bayelsa State, it has realized the urgent need for expansion in order to accommodate the growing demand by the international oil companies and service companies alike. The FMES base is a one-stop-shop which provides all logistical services, including warehousing, material handling equipment, fabrication, assembly yard, crew change management, catering, open and closed storage facilities that can support Oil Exploration companies with acreages around the Bayelsa axis, to be more efficient due to proximity. The proximity has the potentials to reduce swamp and offshore operations cost by 40% and long transit time from Port Harcourt to a mere 8hours from the usual 4/5 days from other locations. In addition, FMES is currently looking www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
at expanding the current base to a second phase which will include a helipad within the facility. Chief Joseph Penawou, the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer speak on this in an interview with our editorial team. Excerpts: Could you tell me what mileage you have attained as an indigenous company? Presently, we want to change the narrative in Bayelsa. We have a facility in Yenagoa, Bayelsa. That’s our new fabrication and logistic base. It is called FMES Logistic Base. This is about a four hundred thousand square meter facility. It consists of 5,000sqmaccommodation area, 8,100sqmfabricationarea, 800sqm overall office area, 600m long Quay Side of, 12m draft, a 3,000sqm jetty of 2,000 tons ramp, 83,000sqm Lay down area. The facility is strategically positioned for oil and gas companies that have acreages around the Bayelsa axis part of Nigeria, to actually use the base as a platform to launch operations into their swamp and
The FMES base is unique in its setup; it is the only logistics facility in Bayelsa for oil and gas operators that have acreages around Bayelsa. It has the potential to reduce their operating cost by 40%as most of these operators mobilize their resources from Port Harcourt, Warri and Lagos. What this means for IOCs and indigenous oil servicing companies is the fact that we offer reduced transit time for logistics, which in return maximizes their operational efficiency with a dependable logistics supports. What’s the next big thing we should be expecting from FMES? The next big thing for FMES is that we are setting up this same logistics base in Warri with the capacity to service the oil and gas service companies and operator in that corridor. Lastly, the local content policy and how it has fared in this past couple of years, what’s your take? This is the most important thing that has happened to Nigerian oil and gas industry because it has enhanced the ability of local or indigenous companies to explore local opportunities while staying competitive globally. It has reduced the need for expatriates on a lot of operations. We now have the capable hands and capacities to carry out all these functions in the oil and gas industry; and it saves the Nigerian economy a whole lot of foreign exchange.
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LOCAL CONTENT CHAMPIONS
‘The Local Content Policy Has Given Significant Opportunities to Nigerians’ – Akalabu the back of various huge projects in the oil and gas industry spanning over 17 years. His quest to add value to his organization’s corporate image and human capital base has resulted in a number of initiatives to enhance economic sustainability within producing regions and maximize local benefits through partnerships among government, companies and civil society organizations. He joined Saipem in September 2018 to support the company’s vision to sustain its leadership role as service providers with complex capabilities in the Nigerian Oil and Gas industry.
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r. Uzoma Akalabu, is the Nigerian Content Manager for SAIPEM Contracting Nigeria Limited. He bagged his first degree in Accounting and MBA in Finance and Strategic Planning. He has worked in various managerial roles spanning 28 years across a range of industries with 21 years in the Oil and Gas industry both as contractor and in the upstream business. He has worked for blue chip contractors and operators including Willbros, Sirpi-Alusteel, Dubi Oil, Worley Parsons/DeltaAfrik Engineering, Seven Energy among others. He was at the core of Willbros, Worley Parsons and Seven Energy Local Content Development spanning over 15 years to support company vision, strategy and growth at various levels. He has passion for Human capacity building and import substitution, to creating a true local content for the industry. He is well experienced in business development and collaboration, and has used his diverse trainings and experience to facilitate strong partnerships and establishment of Grassroots Vendor Development Program in various Niger-Delta communities in numerous areas of operation since 2010; He is also a champion of the deepening the Nigerians can do it ‘Global’ initiative flagged off in Knightsbridge, London in 2013, an associate member of ICQC and Nigerian Energy Institute. He has pioneered many training programs at
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In this brief interview with Majorwaves Energy Report’s Editor, Margaret Nongo-Okojokwu on the sidelines of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Opportunities Fair (NOGOF), held in Yenagoa Bayelsa State; Mr. Akalabu spoke on SAIPEM’s approach to Local Content, vendor development and support, saying SAIPEM has found sustainability in its investment in the Nigerian people and its belief in the Nigerian Market. Excerpts. What is SAIPEM’s approach to Local Content Development and the opportunities here? The Approach for SAIPEM as a multinational service provider is driven by the following factors: * Continuous presence in Nigeria in the last 51 years. Our belief in the Nigerian project and progress, understanding the Nigerian market and culture of the people is a huge factor to adding value to Nigeria. * Continuous investment in Nigeria. In the last 3 years, we have invested over $50m in fabrication yard upgrade and with plan to deploy more resources in same direction in no distant future. * The company currently employs over 1,900 people with over 92% as Nigerians. This is a deliberate
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effort to ensure that Nigerians are provided with the best opportunities in the oil and gas industry. * An average of 100,000 man-hours is dedicated annually to training since 2002 both internally and at the back of projects in collaboration with the NCDMB. * Saipem mentors Nigerian companies at the back of every project to improve their capability and capacity to ensure their business growth. * Technology Transfer has remained one of Saipem hallmarks in driving Nigerian Content. We deploy Nigerian personnel to our sister project locations across the world. Interestingly too, our Nigerian Engineers developed a specialized Confined Space Welding methods which they currently share at our various international locations. This is true local content in action. So in this opportunities fair by the NCDMB, what have you seen so far that indicates or showcases opportunities in the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry? What I’ve seen in the fair is a robust approach by the NCDMB. This is like really thinking outside the box. NCDMB has gone progressively unconventional which is very good for the Nigerian business environment; unconventional in the sense that there is a buy-in from the promoters and operators especially the IOCs; there is a synergy between NCDMB and the operators in the industry to showcase what their plans are in the years ahead to help Nigerian contractors and even those beyond the shores of Nigeria to plan. For a company like SAIPEM, it also helps us to plan as a multinational company on the strategies to put in place before project award. But SAIPEM has a history;
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LOCAL CONTENT CHAMPIONS one of the strengths of SAIPEM to have operated in Nigeria for over 51 years is believing in the Nigerian project and believing in the Nigerian market. It’s about planning, it is about organization, and it’s also about believing and respecting the culture of the people where you invest. I think it’s one of the competitive edge of SAIPEM and it has come to stay. For what NCDMB is doing and we think will continue to do, this will help in the continued expansion of the industry. My understanding yesterday at the auditorium was that Nigeria has in excess of 27 Billion Barrels of oil sitting in the Atlantic. So it requires technology to get this thing from the sea and you can count SAIPEM in to be part of this campaign. You mentioned that your approach for opportunities that you’ve seen is two pronged, can you explain that? Yes, it is actually a multi-dimensional approach, first of all is the IOC or the operator that wants to develop their assets who will call on the major service providers first through competitive bid, and SAIPEM falls into this category, and when all the requirements are met and there is an existing contract, SAIPEM makes a deliberate effort despite the size of its yard, and the facilities therein, and because of its consciousness to Nigeria and local content, provides sub-contracts to Nigerian vendors and suppliers of goods and services to support the project. This is a strategy that has added so much value to the system. So it’s a multiplier effect? Yes, SAIPEM falls in into that bracket of quantum value creation; SAIPEM is significantly in the mix of that quantum value; because I can see in this exhibition that over 50% of the companies here have rendered services to SAIPEM in one way or the other in past projects. You can see that we just sit here humbly and welcome curious investors and our vendors. So I think it’s quite fulfilling and interesting for us. That’s very interesting; I didn’t know that. Yes, because we’ve been in the
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business of building capacity for so many years even before the NOGICD Act was signed into law in 2010, I think some of them are manifesting today, a whole lot of them showcasing today. When you talk about capacity building for your vendors, what is the extra you do? The extra we do is that when we give you a project and we see grey areas, we deploy resources like supervisors, machines to ensure that you are guided appropriately and even provide you with business strategies, so that subsequently, we don’t need to come back again once the project comes, we just provide you with the contract and you run with it, you know these things take time to mature, but we are happy today that a lot of companies that are mentored by SAIPEM are maturing fast. We are very happy about it as we look forward to more businesses to sustain the tempo of growing Nigerian businesses. As a local content manager for SAIPEM, what do you think about the Nigerian Content Act, how has it impacted on your company and its growth? In fact, before 2010, the directive was a hard sell for a lot of investors, but I think SAIPEM became an exception. SAIPEM believed in it since 2003 and had a local content policy. It’s a mindset which we have been using over these years until the law came into being, making it to now blossom into the compliance phase. So SAIPEM has built on this over the last 16 years. The local content policy has given significant opportunities to Nigerians and I always tell people if you don’t come to ask, you will not see the opportunities, you need to be part of the industry, you need to attend seminars, workshops and conferences to know what is going on in the industry, you cannot stay by the sidelines and criticize that things are leaving the shores of Nigeria, things are not leaving the shores of Nigeria, Nigerians who are conscious of what is happening in the industry are taking advantage and there’s so much to do in the industry; so come and invest, identify your strength.
Everybody started from somewhere and today, a lot of Nigerian companies have amazing competences, world class skills, you know we can beat our chest anywhere in the world, Nigerians are doing well and this has been driven by the local content Act. Though there is still so much to do in the years ahead. As a Multinational Company, what is the impact of local content on deep water operations in this country? The deep water operations like I said before now, is high technology deployment and I know that if you are conscious about your investment, if you are conscious about building capacity, you will be able to have takeaways from what is involved. What local content has brought to us is Engineering; Installation Engineering and Offshore Engineering, support vessels. There is a trajectory that has changed; there is a paradigm shift from being scared of the Atlantic to loving the Atlantic; Nigerians love the Atlantic now because there is belief that there is something there for everybody. So the deep water project is an advantage to open up the Nigerian system, especially for our Engineers, currently we have subsea Nigerian Engineers that have gone deep in excess of 150 kilometers to do installation and we are really proud of them, we are hoping that as more projects come, we would be able to train more Nigerians to take on the challenges. Nigerians like opportunities; they like to take opportunities when they see them. As we continue to build capacity, we do a lot of training and retraining; for every project, we train graduate Engineers on various competences. E l e c t r i c a l i n s t r u m e nt at i o n , mechanical, civil, and all relevant disciplines in engineering that has a lot to do with project delivery. So as we turn them out, integration plan may not be automatic but if the project is available we just integrate them. And these guys over a period of time will key in into high technology competency. Right now we have over six Nigerian Engineers in Milan, Nigerian Engineers that are involved in the NLNG Train 7 FEED phase. And we have over 63 Nigerian Engineers working in Port Harcourt in a COREN registered office doing the same design with the support of very committed Expatriates.
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NOGOF 2019:
LOCAL CONTENT CHAMPIONS It is about creating the opportunity and SAIPEM management knows that the more these opportunities are created, the more opportunities for capacity building, because you need to believe that the business will be significantly driven through local content. This is a very firm belief by SAIPEM management and this makes the company stand out as a local content base in Nigeria. Lastly, before I let you go, let’s talk about upcoming projects, the likes of Zabazaba, Bonga South-West, NLNG Train 7, and Total’s Preowei project; is SAIPEM part of those bidding for this contract and if yes, how have you positioned yourself to benefit or to carry out these projects? I am glad to say that SAIPEM deploys a lot of successful strategies in project execution in Nigeria. We have the strategy of conception and partnership because the idea is to ensure that from the other side we are going at the same level with the Nigerian partner and that things are done the way they ought to be done without compromising standards. We are involved in all the projects bids on the big stage and because of the competency and capability of the company, there is high level of confidence that if this opportunity is provided, we will as usual, deliver quality; so we are strategically positioned for any project no matter how challenging, we know that some of them could be quite challenging on many fronts, Bonga South West, NLNG Train 7, Preowei for Total, etc. SAIPEM has positioned itself to take on the challenge and the workforce is not in doubt and you know ironically, the workforce are predominantly Nigerians, competent engineers, the best around, we’re just waiting in the wings to say hey, go to the field. That is one of the reasons why we are here to also tell Nigerians that we are here again to build capacity for everybody, because whether you like it or not, we are front liners, we are always in the frontlines, reason being that it’s a multinational service provider and there’s the need to be very strong in management, planning and organization. So I think that’s one of the major factors that have made SAIPEM fit for future.
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NCDMB Launches Compendium of Nigerian Content Opportunities in the Oil and Gas Industry ....Lists 80 opportunities worth $100bn ....FG to create network, timelines for identified projects By Margaret Nongo-Okojokwu
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he Nigerian C ontent Development and Monitoring Board (N C D M B) h a v e p r e s e n t e d 80 business opportunities t hat a re wor t h $10 0 bi l l ion fo r o p e r ato r s i n t h e Ni g e r i a n O i l a n d G a s i n du s t r y. Speaking at the recently concluded 2nd Nigerian Oil and Gas Opportunity F a i r ( N O G O F ) i n Ye n a g o a , Bayel s a State, t he E xecutive S e c r e t a r y , N C D M B , E n g r. S i m b i K e s i y e Wa b o t e , s a i d t he B o a r d h a d ident i f ie d over 8 0 oil a nd ga s oppor tunities that would be developed by major international and indigenous operating companies in the short and long term, with the estimated cumulative va lue of the projects exceeding $10 0 bi l l ion. T he pr oj e c t s a r e c ont a i ne d i n the C ompendium of Niger ia n C ontent Opportunities in the Oil and Gas Industry lau nched at the event. T he projects and opportunities cover the upstream, midstream and dow nstream sectors of the Nigerian oil and gas sectors and were col lated f rom presentations MAY- JUNE 2019, Vol 2 No 3
by various oil and gas companies at the first e d i t i o n o f N O G O F i n 2 0 17 and updated at workshops organised by the Board in O ctob er 2 018. Wa b o t e e x p l a i n e d t h a t t h e c o m p e n d i u m w a s i nt e n d e d t o c r e ate a d at a b a s e o f Ni ge r i a n Content opportunities and help indigenous and p otentia l i nve stor s prepa re, improve their capacities a nd capabilities to participate in ava ila ble a nd upcoming contracts a nd projects. He added that the compendium gives the industry a five year outlook and enables stakeholders to key into t h o s e o p p o r t u n i t i e s . “ Tw o y e a r s a g o w h e n w e h e l d t h i s wo rk s h o p we t a l ke d a b o u t E x xo n M o b i l’s I b o t , To t a l ’s I k i k e a n d N L N G Tr a i n 7. To d a y t h e y a r e going through the funnel and within the next few week s they wou ld ta ke F i na l I n v e s t m e nt D e c i s i o n s (F I D s) o n I k i ke a n d I b o t a n d b e fo r e the end of the year they w o u l d t a k e F I D o n Tr a i n 7.
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NOGOF 2019:
“We fo cu s a nd fol low t h rou g h on those opportunities. Every two years we roll on new opportunities and a d d t o t h e c o m p e n d i u m ,” h e s a i d . I n h i s ke y n ote a d d r e s s , the Honourable Minister of state for Petroleum, Dr Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu adv ised the pa r ticipa nts to u rgently refocus ef for ts on p o s s i b l e i n n ov at i v e s o l u t i o n s t hat w i l l del iver i nve stment opportunities and also admonished indigenous Oil Companies to take Over IO C s’ op er at ion s, he a l s o st ate d t hat t he cha n ge s i n t he global oil and gas industr y are presently challeng ing the pre sent exploration a nd i nvestment strateg ies. T he Minister a lso pointed out t hat t he sp e e dy development o f t h e i d e n t i f i e d $1 0 0 b i l l i o n oppor tunities would require the roles a nd contr i butions o f v a r i o u s e nt it i e s , i n c lu d i n g t he D ep a r t me nt o f Pet r oleu m R e s ou rce s (DPR) for a p p r ov a l s , Ni g e r i a n Nat i o n a l Petroleum Corporation (N N PC) for negotiation s and the oil companies, who would take F IDs, among others.He promised that the Ministr y of Petroleum Resources would midwife a specia l a r ra ngement that would involve ever y agency of government and entity t h at h a s a r o l e to p l ay i n t h e approva l a nd development o f t h e i d e n t i f i e d p r o j e c t s .
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“ We m u s t a v o i d a s i t u a t i o n where the NC DMB might work ver y fa st and get to the goal post and others a r e j u s t t a k i n g o f f . We wou l d c r e ate a n a r r a n ge m e nt that involves everybody and be clear about the deliverables, timelines and opportunities and bring out something which ever yone c a n t h e n d r i v e ,” h e s a i d . O n g ov e r n m e nt’s s u p p o r t for modula r refiner ies a s a strateg y for ending crude oil theft, vandalism and env i ron menta l deg radation, K achi kw u hinted that the M i n i s t r y o f Pet r o l e u m wo u l d develop a policy that would encourage persons living in oil producing communities to for m cooperatives, w ith which they can set up and o w n m o d u l a r r e f i n e r i e s . “ We w o u l d h av e s o m e ag reements w ith them to s t o p t h e s a b o t a g e . We c a n work w ith NC DMB to put in a bit of funding. T hen we put i n te ch n ic a l k nowh o w, b u s i n e s s s t r u c t u r e a round it a nd have a major shareholder who is an e n t r e p r e n e u r. T h a t w a y t h e loca l s get to pa r ticipate, get j o b s , p o l i s h t h e i r s k i l l s s et s , cr ude is pa id for a nd not stolen a nd the env i ron ment i s b e t t e r d e a l t w i t h ,” h e said.Speaking further the Minister expressed regret that the potentialities of the Nigerian oil and
gas sector was not being maximized and counseled stakeholders to accelerate their activities because oil is a fa st degenerating a sset and developed countries were already switching to cleaner energ y options.He also challenged industry players to strive for i mprovements i n a l l facets o f t h e i r o p e r at i o n s , i n s i s t i n g that Nigeria should be p r o du c i n g ove r s e ve n m i l l i o n barrels of crude oil ever y day a nd enough ga s to meet i t s e l e c t r i c i t y n e e d s . T he M i n i ster a l s o c om mende d the executive secreta r y of NCDMB for its numerous achievements, especially for the constr uction of fa ir venue, the new NCDMB headqua r ters.O ver 10 0 0 delegates including the G overnor of Bayelsa State, Hon Seriake Dickson; Minister of State for P e t r o l e u m R e s o u r c e s , D r. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu; Manag ing Director of Shell Petroleum Development C ompa ny (SPD C), M r. O s a g ie Okunbor and many other dig nitaries participated in the 2nd edition of NOGOF organised by the NCDMB i n Ye n a g o a , B a y e l s a S t a t e T h e f a i r, w h i c h h a d t h e t h e m e ‘’M a x i m i z i n g O i l & G a s I n d u s t r y fo r t h e B e n e f i t o f t h e N i g e r i a n P e o p l e’’ w a s held at the NC DM B 10 0 0 capacity conference hall.
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LOCAL CONTENT CHAMPIONS
“We are Proud Nigerian Content Players” – Chika Okoro
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hika Okoro is the Managing Director of Well Energy Limited, a 100% indigenous oilfield services company with vast experiences in Reservoir and Production Engineering Services. Known for proficiency with Slick line, Surface Well testing, and PDMS services ranging from 30 – 35 years, it is well supported by its technical partners: PPS, Calgary & WELLTEST INC., and Firstsource Integrated Energy Services Nig. Ltd. What do you think of these opportunities the IOCs want to showcase at the coming NOGOF and how do you think it will benefit Well Energy and other service companies? If the IOCs truthfully showcase the available projects, indigenous companies will certainly benefit from it. We are often found guessing, and trying to make one presentation or the other to these IOCs in hope that we could just be lucky. But if the IOCs walked up to us on their own accord to say “Gentlemen, this is actually what we want”, and “this is the way we want it provided and the way you should position yourself”, of course it will help the service providers. We will be better organized and positioned. In fact, we will have tailor-made services www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
prepared for such projects. For these reasons, I’m in total agreement that NOGOF is a laudable venture and should be supported by all stake holders. So what kind of opportunities will Well Energy be looking for, to channel investments? Presently, we are into permanent down-hole Monitoring System installation and maintenance, wellhead maintenance, slick-line, and surface well testing. We are also trying to expand towards LWD/ MWD. Though it’s a lot more costly, we are drifting towards LWD/ MWD, which are electric line services. So, if the IOCs tell us what they want, we might just be able to tailor this along with our vision. What is your take on project 100 recently launched by the NCDMB? Wonderful idea, very wonderful! But I’m naturally sceptical about innovative ideas with government agencies these days. A fundamental role of the NCDMB is developmental which includes helping the oil industry build local capacity. With the clamour for inclusion of linkage industries, the scope becomes very
large, though it should be seen as a welcome development; my concern is how they will manage supervision. Because presently, supervision can be better than what it is. here are too many paper works. A lot of these parameters are not well understood, and it appears that even the facilitating staff of the Board to even understand them. The man, who is the service provider, doesn’t understand the reporting parameters. So, at the end of the day everything is done on paper and they don’t translate to actual realities. I advocate for workshops in this regard. Let’s have trainings and re-trainings. It has to be a continuous process and a forum where, quarterly the NCDMB and service providers meet to discuss vital feedback. These meetings and workshops will spur growth. From the day a company registers with NCDMB there should be a growth plan documented and monitored by the Board. At the tenth year, a milestone review should probe the trajectory with clear reasons why these companies have fared the way they did and how they have been affected by the environment,
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LOCAL CONTENT CHAMPIONS policies and other factors. This isn’t about funds or contracts; it’s about understanding the NCDMB parameters. I know the authorities mean well, but the communication is incomplete. Can you be a little more specific? Ok. Here are specifics. NCDMB would ask you a question like: “what’s the value of the contract in pursuit?” And then want additional information of parameters hinged on that. You are not always privy to these numbers, so you can’t really give an answer. We pursue a lot of call-off contracts and the ceilings placed on them are unknown, yet you will be asked to give parameters based on that unknown value. Eighty per cent of the services we render in the oil and gas industry are on call, yet we provide answers to questions on parameters. These are predominantly estimates and guess work. It means there is something fundamentally wrong and the data are unreliable. Why make projections on such? How do they convert them to actuals? What are the implications and the multiplier effect? However, when they realise the actual figures from NAPIMS and the IOCs on the different projects, are they able to tie them to the data we have provided? Do they reconcile these things and realise the assumptions and parameters we have provided are inadequate? How often do they go back to find out about these assumptions, that were made while we presented those documentations before and after contract award and execution. You didn’t make the Project 100 list; what are your thoughts about the initiative? I think it’s a great initiative. The Board selects and focuses on a 100 companies to which it provides institutional and financial support. Brilliant initiative; there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. Similar developmental initiatives happen all over the world. One can take what is called a specimen from a whole and when your experiment is finished, you can judge how the whole would react. However, the principle in statistics about obtaining
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samples is that these 100 companies should be a good representation of the entire industry. They should be careful to ensure the sample is drawn from every corner of the targeted industry(s), it should be even. I hear KPMG was involved in the selection process. Good move. If followed through, I don’t see why the initiative shouldn’t work. These selected ones can become giants tomorrow and even spur healthy competition among other service companies, while addressing real bottlenecks with institutions of government. If the selection sampling is properly done, and the Board follows the plan through, then we can achieve the development objectives other developed countries set out to achieve when the pursued the same initiatives. What has been your recent experience as regards timing for contracting process? Poor. It has always been poor and has not changed. Gestation period for contracts in Nigeria is too long and that is why it stifles companies and young companies die off. I bid for a contact in 2010 and it doesn’t see the light of the day until 2013 or 2015. Pre-qualification exercise comes up six years down the line when every variable has changed. How do you manage to break even if you are awarded such a contract? The gestation period is too long. We have cried about it but it doesn’t seem as if there is anything anybody can do about it. What’s your overall assessment of local content drive in Nigeria? Years ago, when PETAN agitated for participation in the industry, we called it Local Content. But when the Act was to be passed, law makers changed it to Nigerian Content. Now, the definition for the Nigerian Content became slightly different from our definition of Local Content. What should be the actual definition of a Nigerian company?
that Nigerian companies have not properly positioned themselves to take up what is theirs. They haven’t built enough capacity over the years. What is your drive for training and how have you been able to transfer knowledge and skill-set acquired from these three multinationals where you worked before setting up Well Energy? Members of my staff are always on training. I spend huge sums in training and honestly I don’t mind. One of my staff just left for Saudi Aramco in Abu Dhabi. I didn’t stop him from going. It was because of the training they poached him. He’s a very honest, young man. He told me he was leaving and I wished him well. So, we don’t joke with training. I benefited a lot via training from multinationals and I don’t see why people shouldn’t be trained when they work for you. What’s the next big thing for well energy? To build capacity. To be able to compete fairly with the multinationals. I worked for three multinationals in this country, so I long to see a day when indigenous service companies are not dependent on the CEOs. Let them run on auto pilot without a CEO. I want to sit at home, sipping coffee while Well Energy runs smoothly without interference from me; that’s my vision.
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Because we believe firmly in human capital development, it’s not surprising when I see global players poach my staff. One recently joined Saudi Aramco.”
However, it’s the implementation that is the important thing. To be candid, the IOCs have done well. Don’t get me wrong, but there’s still a lot of room for improvement. They have obeyed that law significantly. My worry is
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LOCAL CONTENT CHAMPIONS
“Local Content Implementation has helped us create more jobs” – Onafowokan, MD Coleman Cables by the end of 2014. Through his leadership, the Company has grown to be an industry leader in the Cable manufacturing industry by producing Coaxial TV/Video & Cat 5/Cat 6 cables which are first’s for Nigeria & West Africa, and have taken it a notch higher by building the FIRST High Voltage XLPE cable production plant in West Africa, making Nigeria only the SIXTH country of production in Africa.
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r. George Olutope Onafowokan is the Managing Director/CEO of Coleman Technical Industries Limited, manufacturers of the popular brand Coleman Wires & Cables and also serves as the current Chairman of the Electrical and Electronic Sector of the Manufacturers’ Association of Nigeria (MAN). He is an Accountant by profession, having obtained a combined Bachelor degree in Accounting and Finance from Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester UK. He thereafter obtained a Degree of Master in Management and Information Systems (Combined) from University of Salford, U.K. He started his career in Packard Bell UK as Field Manager, where he shined in sales and marketing as well as customer relations. He thereafter joined PC World UK as Business Accounts Manager and later, Gem International UK Limited as the Pioneer Managing Director. As a worthy son of the soil, he returned to Nigeria in 2002 to lead the team to restructure Coleman Technical Industries Limited manufacturers of Coleman Wires & Cables and grew the Company’s Assets from N50Million in 2002 to N15Billion 50
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I n t h i s br ief ch at w it h Majorwaves Energy Report’s Editor, MARGARET NONGOOKOJOKWU, Mr. Onofowokan speaks on issues bordering substandard products as well as the impact of the Local Content Act on his business amongst other issues. Excerpts Congratulations on your award! How did you feel when your company was announced as one of the Nigerian Indigenous Service Providers with the most impactful contribution to Local Content Development (within the period of 2017 to date?) I was shocked; shocked with excitement because we were not told that even the award will be in anyway because most of the awards are always won by Oil Servicing Companies, I have technically not seen a manufacturer win an award by the NCDMB or NOGOF before, so it was a pleasant surprise. We have worked hard over the last seven to eight years and to actually achieve this recognition is really impressive; it has been a painstaking journey, but I would say under the current leadership of the NCDMB, it has been a journey that has been made easy. So as a Nigerian, we actually see opportunities and know that the local content Board is there to back you if you put your money in it. So there is no discouragement anymore for investment, even for
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the Nigerians. Like the Executive Secretary would always say, “It is not about Nigerianizing local content; it is about making Nigeria a Local Content hub“, so that is why we are participating and we understand that and are driving that focus, and that drive is what is making us to even invest more. So, when you are actually seeing things like this, you are encouraged that you are a local manufacturer within this big, I call it a small cloak of big Oil Service sector and it is almost impossible to find manufacturers within this scope, it is encouraging and that is the drive that is keeping us going. So, going forward now, what do you think you can do extra? I mean, this is like an incentive to you; that someone recognizes what you are doing – what more do you think you can do? I think we’ve started doing more already, based on what we’ve seen them do over the last two years. Since the visit of the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Engr. Simbi Kesiye Wabote in February 2017, we’ve actually been encouraged, because if you look at what he said then and what they’ve done, it has encouraged us to invest more. Now the investment we are putting in is bringing in new things like the Rubber Cables, like the ESP Cables into Nigeria, into In-House local production. We’ve already done high voltage and have started seeing the benefits of making high voltage cables with orders from the Oil and Gas sector. The next phase is where we are going to; it is a big investment, but we started it even before NOGOF and they saw that we’ve started investing in expansion. It has created for us an extra additional five hundred to a thousand jobs; and we see more opportunities for us to create new jobs.
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LOCAL CONTENT CHAMPIONS
But if we did not have that first encouragement, there’ll be no reason for us to take a long term position and that is the major difference between what we have today and we have years back. The opportunities that are there today are seen to be grab-able, attainable, reachable and realistic. In the past, opportunities were not like that; you never get them, though you might be praying for it, but you never get it, just like the Executive Secretary said at one time, that may be in your next generation you’ll still be talking about it. But today, we see realities in most projects, we see that they are not just talking but they are working the talk and that’s the major difference. So it is encouraging that outlook of business, it is also encouraging the right set of investment, which then creates the right set of jobs and then allows us to tap properly into the Oil and Gas industry. Awesome! So talking about NOGOF 2019; what can you say about this event, have you been able to identify opportunities that Coleman Cables can handle? Too many, in fact I think at a point, you’ll almost want to roll off your chair, which amounts to the kind of opportunities I am talking about. Today, if you look at the Zabazaba project, it is an opportunity, NLNG Train 7 is an opportunity, Bonga South West is also an opportunity and there are so many others. Now, we’ve even heard some from Agip that are not as big as these three names we are hearing and they are resounding opportunities even from Shell. There are so many other opportunities we’ve also heard from some of the IOCs, and that’s encouraging us that we are all on the right path. Sometimes people make mistakes that the only opportunities are there in big contracts, but today we now see local content in small contracts that are not technically small, but they are CSR, they are powering communities and most of these oil and gas companies are spending a lot of money doing CSR and electrification; they are now also patronizing local companies for solutions for CSR; which is encouraging, and www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
that’s the difference. The local content drive is now becoming a watchword everywhere, it is moving and now catching on like wildfire, to the extent that almost every other agency is trying to copy the NCDMB today and that is the driving force. For Coleman, I recall sometimes back you said that Coleman Cables would soon start venturing into our neighbouring African countries, what is your strategy? It is still part of our strategy, but our first target will be ‘Nigeria first’. We expect within this year and the first Quarter to have achieved a 40million dollars expansion in Nigeria by the first phase; after we’ve achieved our Nigerian goal, we can then start looking to expand into the West African market, but first as exports, we should be looking at exporting our products also, I mean we should also sell our products, we shouldn’t think it the other way round, if people can sell to us, why shouldn’t we export ours? So, our first target is to export to other countries, our own solution. In this era of sub-standard or fake products everywhere in the market, how have you been able to deal with that? The fake products scenario will continue to be there because criminals will always want to make money for doing nothing and that’s the unfortunate part of Nigeria. But what we’ve found out as a solution is build capacity, make it price competitive and it will not be profitable for criminals to want to come in. We’ve started doing that in the last six months; Coleman today is the cheapest made-in- Nigeria cable; we can literally guarantee that for you; and on the basis of that, we’ve seen volumes skyrocketed out and we’ve had less complains also on the adulteration, now so many people are sharing the benefits as resellers of the product; and that have reduced the amount of problems we’ve been having; of course, that to me has always been the right measures. When you cannot beat these criminals, fight them at their profitability, make
these goods available and within a price level that is competitive. At Coleman Wires and Cables, we are committed to manufacturing consistent quality wires and cables that meet and exceed our customers’ expectations. We ensure continual improvement of our processes and services delivery through staff development, motivation and creation of a conducive work environment towards achieving utmost customer satisfaction. Finally, where do you see Coleman in the next five to ten years? For us, five years, ten years time, it’s literally everywhere you go, every place you are, every door you see, and every house you wire; basically that’s the name you should be calling, Coleman. That’s where we see ourselves. Thank you.
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It is not about Nigerianizing local content; it is about making Nigeria a Local Content hub“
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GHANA REPORT
GHANA Aker Energy Concludes Appraisal Campaign Offshore Ghana to Pecan South was initiated to verify the volume potential of Pecan South by testing a deeper part of the structure. The sidetrack well encountered oil shows, but no recoverable resources due to a tight reservoir. Based on preliminary data analysis, it is estimated that between 5-15 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) could be added to the Pecan field development from Pecan South. Third well finds oil Aker Energy has also completed a well in Pecan South East, the third well in the appraisal campaign. The well encountered oil in a thin upper sand. The partners will now assess the data gathered from the well to evaluate whether the accumulation could be tied-in to the Pecan field development.
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orwegian Oil and gas company Aker Energy has concluded the appraisal drilling campaign at its operated Deepwater Tano Cape Three Points (DWT/CTP) block offshore Ghana. The company is currently working on a revised Plan for Development and Operations (PDO), following scheduled feedback from Ghanaian authorities. Aker Energy started appraisal drilling in the DWT/CTP block offshore Ghana in November 2018, leading up to the submission of an integrated Plan of Development and Operations (PDO) on March 28. Jan Arve Haugan, CEO of Aker Energy, said: “Based on close collaboration with Ghanaian authorities, regulators and our license partners, Aker Energy submitted an application for approval of a comprehensive development plan with the objective of maximizing oil recovery in the DWT/CTP area and ultimately unlocking significant potential value for the People of Ghana. We appreciate the ongoing constructive and transparent dialogue with the Ghanaian authorities and the feedback we now have received is an important and natural part of the approval process. www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
“We are currently updating the application with an ambition to get the formal approval ahead of our final investment decision, allowing us to commence execution of this promising development project.” Aker Energy announced the completion of the appraisal drilling campaign on Friday, April 26. The purpose of the appraisal campaign was to verify the partners’ understanding of the area and to prove up additional resources to further strengthen the Pecan field development. The recent appraisal drilling campaign has consisted of three appraisal wells and a sidetrack well. “The appraisal wells have provided valuable information for us to further optimize the area development plan in the DWT/CTP block. We remain committed to continue developing the petroleum resources in the area in a way that will deliver value to the people of Ghana and to us and our partners,” said Haugan. Pecan-4A and Pecan South, the first and second wells in the appraisal campaign, identified deep oil/water contact and confirmed the partners’ geological model. A side-track well
Once the Plan for Development and Operation has been agreed with the authorities, Aker Energy estimates that first oil from the Pecan field could be produced 35 months after the final investment decision (FID). Reserves, to be developed in the first phase, are estimated at 334 million barrels of oil. Discovered contingent resources, to be developed in subsequent phases, are estimated at 110-210 mmboe, resulting in a combined volume base of approximately 450–550 mmboe. These estimates exclude any additional volumes from Pecan South and Pecan South East, currently being assessed. The partners have identified further upsides in the area that they intend to mature as part of the area development. Aker Energy believes that the total resource potential in the area is still within the range of 600-1000 mmboe. Aker Energy Ghana Limited is the operator under the DWT/CTP Petroleum Agreement with a 50% participating interest. Its partners are Lukoil Overseas Ghana Tano Limited (38%), the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) (10%) and Fueltrade Limited (2%).
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GHANA REPORT
GHANA
Blue Ocean Investments Organizes Successful Emergency Drill Involving LPG Leak at Major Terminal
It could have been another story – “LPG truck explodes due to leakage; 5 killed and 50 injured.” Fortunately however, this was nowhere near the case at the Blue Ocean Investments Multi-Product Terminal in Kpone, Tema. Thanks to a successful fullscale Tier-3 emergency simulation, Blue Ocean Investments – Ghana’s biggest Bulk Distributor of petroleum products – is now more equipped than ever before in the face of a highly unlikely real emergency.
team, while simultaneously revealing areas for improvement to ensure a seamless response all round.
Tier-3 incidents are the most serious types of incidents as their impact goes far beyond their immediate surroundings. In this exercise, the incident involved the simulation of an LPG leakage from an LPG truck using inert gas.
“At Blue Ocean Investments, health and safety is our number one priority. We will not wait for a real incident to get our house in order. While it is important to ensure that we can continue to serve our customers’ needs following a crisis, one simply cannot place a value on human life. We will therefore not compromise on ensuring that our workers, our customers and our surrounding community are safe by putting our systems to the test and enhancing them where needed,” said Mr. Yunusa. On his part, the Head of Operations of the Ghana National Fire Service (GNFS), Mr. Paul Assifuah Baidoo, commended Blue Ocean Investments for the swiftness of its internal emergency team who had already commenced fighting the fire prior to the arrival of the GNFS. “I was impressed by the Blue Ocean team and how they had already begun firefighting with state-of-the-art equipment before we arrived on the scene. We were directed right to the incident which enabled us to leap into action quickly.
The Simulation This full-scale simulation involved the feigning of injuries requiring first aid and ambulance responses, and the activation of internal emergency systems at the depot before external emergency services took over; combined with the assembling of the crisis management command teams at the company’s head office as well as the depot to bring the simulated crisis to an end. Commencing at about one ‘o’ clock in the afternoon and ending around 4pm, the exercise demonstrated the robustness of the safety systems and 54
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Thoughts on The Exercise Speaking on the exercise, the Managing Director of Blue Ocean Investments, Mr. Yahaya Yunusa, emphasised Blue Ocean’s commitment to health and safety in all its operations, placing a premium on human life.
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It would however be ideal to ensure that the incident commander hands over to the GNFS to coordinate the response once on site, but this was not done. Overall however, I must say that it was a good exercise,” said Mr. Baidoo. The Environmental, Health and Safety Director of the Kpone Municipal Assembly, Mr. Jonas Ablade, added the following: “Blue Ocean did well to leave the loading trucks at the bay instead of trying to evacuate them, as this could cause further emergencies such as spills and fires. After all in disaster management, the main aim is to save lives, property and the environment,” said Mr. Ablade. Other entities that participated in the drill include the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO); the Ghana Police Service, Ghana Red Cross, Ghana Ambulance Service, neighbouring company Oil tanking, and partner transporter company J.K. Horgle Transport. Blue Ocean Investments has made significant investments in oil storage infrastructure in Ghana. In addition to its state-of-the-art storage facility in Takoradi which stores and distributes gasoline and gasoil, the company owns and operates two storage terminals in Tema storing Aviation fuel, Gasoil, Gasoline and LPG, as well as a depot at the Kotoka International Airport that stores Aviation fuel. Source: www.theworldnews.net www.majorwavesenergyreport.com
NOGOF 2019
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NOGOF 2019 cont.
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