ENGR. SIMBI WABOTE, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF NCDMB
The Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board, NCDMB, is the body that monitors Local Content development in Nigeria including its compliance. It is saddled with the responsibility to ensure that local capacity is improved in-country especially the service aspect of the oil industry.
The Executive Secretary, ES, Engr. Simbi Wabote spoke with OGODO DOUGALS FELIX and some journalists on the sideline of the Nigeria Oil & Gas Conference, NOG, recently. Wabote said the oil and gas industry is not on a fast track hence it is not a sprint that could be accelerated. He gave reasons that the oil industry has to do with capacity building since technology is involved. Partnership is also needed in building capacity.
The ES said $200 million intervention fund for the industry is to attract counterpart funding while the Board trains and monitors companies that are involved in training. These companies are to train and employ some of those who have been trained. Part of the objectives of NCDMB is for people to be self-sustaining such that they will be employers of labour.
Excerpts:
How can you fast track the oil and gas industry and what is project 100 all about?
I don’t know about fast track, the oil and gas business cannot go on a fast track, capacity building and local content development is not a sprint, it is a marathon. The whole idea behind project 100 is to identify a couple of Nigerian companies that we can work with over time to build their capacity. We want to build capacity of people who can deliver highly technical service. This is not just in a day or six months; it takes a lot of time.
What have we done so far, we have been able to transparently select about 60 or more that applied based on the criteria we have set. Yes, the target is a 100 by January next year we will then look at the remaining 40 and difinetely we shall get to 100 and we have been able to get them. Currently, about a month ago we organize extensive training for most of the companies. Their managers and staff were trained for six weeks in various aspect of project management, understanding the industry and how to access opportunities, what’s the process to go through. We have extensive six weeks training and we also train them on underwater activities because the industry is going upward, we needed them to understand that. Just two weeks ago, we have to select about 10 of them because to build capacity in the oil and gas sector, you need partnership, you can’t do it alone.
How do you create partnership between local and international businesses that have technology and expertise, so we took about 10 of them to Oil & Gas Fair for them to meet other international companies that want to come and do business with Nigeria, see how they work, synergize to close that partnership. Of course, we couldn’t take the 60 because we don’t have the fund to begin to take 60 people on that journey. Out of the 10 about 8 of them got international recognition.
This is where we are and we are building programmes right now to develop a strategy to complete them. First of all, know where they are and where we want to take them to. This is currently ongoing. It has to be structured pattern that is why it is not a fast track arrangement; it is a long-time developmental arrangement that will be well structured.
What is the update of NOGAS?
The NOGAS, like I said two of them construction is currently ongoing in Bayelsa and Calabar. For the Bayelsa one the contractor has been mobilized to site, the Calabar one in the next couple of weeks once we get the necessary approval we will go ahead. The infrastructure on it, we are also moving ahead, we believe that in the next one month, we will get the necessary approval. Our target is to see how we get those two projects completed. As for the power plant that will support the Bayelsa NOGAS, hopefully, it will be commissioned sometime early August.
Can you tell us more about the $200 million intervention fund?
The message is to attract counterpart founding to that level not necessarily to release the fund. I think that was the challenge with the Bank of Industry, BoI. BoI is the bank managing that intervention fund for us. They are working very hard last month we had a meeting with the leadership of BoI and they are about concluding some form of counterpart founding in the pact of the $200 million they are managing for us. So, it is not to raise but look for counterpart funding to support so that we don’t stop that process. It has to continue. They are making good progress. Sourcing for fund is not a day’s job and hopeful that will be concluded very soon.
This year will be the 9th edition of the Practical Nigeria Conference, PNC, concerning the assessment of this programme, what impact does it have on the industry?
This is actually not PNC, it is NOG. The 9th edition of PNC will be at December am sure you have followed the trend of what PNC is all about. I think most industry players look forward to it. It really provides a platform to interact and assess it as stakeholders. It assesses the Board from where we are with our programmes which is a healthy thing, it also provides the platform for service providers to interact with the operators and see the capacity that have been developed in-country.
People are excited about it and they look forward to it because it is a real Local Content activity that is practical where people see future business opportunities that are discussed. Issues are also tackled.
December this year, we look forward to the 9th edition and very importantly in Yenegoa in Bayelsa State, in our modern conference facility. I think it is perhaps one of the best in the country. So, people should look forward to that. During that event people will see that we have moved into our new head office in Yenegoa.
On the training of technicians, there are some sectors where people are trained and they outnumbered the need of the kind of services they are meant to provide. This is why some people are not getting employed. What is NCDMB doing to balance the Act so that if there are people that need to be employed somewhere, they can be deployed elsewhere. Is there any plan or interchange from one subsector of the sector to be able to accommodate them?
That is why since I came on board, in terms of training, NCDMB has adopted a different approach. We don’t get into training for training sake. A lot of people have been trained either through NCDMB, Amnesty Programme or Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, yet these fellows don’t see where to work. There is no provision strategy to say we will adopt what we call 60-20-20 approach for training. 60% of our training is to focus on people that will be trained with ease of addressing jobs opportunities will be there. 20% focus on those who already have their jobs, how do we upscale their capacity to be able to serve the industry proper. Then the other 20% can have general training where people will be trained in terms of work ethics and interpersonal relationship. Also, to enhance their ability to perform.
Today, there is a company called AOS Orwell that is training electrician for us and part of the agreement with them is that 60% of those who are trained will be absolved. That is the contract and if they don’t absolve those 60, they don’t get paid for the services they provide. That is the way you force people to provide training that will enhance employment rather than training people. You are right of course that we design a model to ensure that they are employed. We are also focusing on entrepreneurial ship training; we are not training people so that they will seek for employment. How can they become self-sustaining such that they will become entrepreneur themselves and employ people rather training them to look for jobs.
In terms of refinery, NCDMB, Waltersmith have a joint pact on a refinery coming soon and another initiative is in Calabar. What is the push and drive for this initiative and what does the Board intends to achieve?
The push and the drive for it is government policy trying to bring up modular refineries in order to support local refining petroleum products in-country. The government launched a yearly programme to localized refinery. The mistake people make is that they think modular refinery is a different kind of refinery. It is still the same refinery but in a smaller scale. How can you get it going so that you begin to refine products in-country? That is the drive, it is part of government’s policy to do this and we are at tandem with that.
If you recall when the president launched the 7 BIG WINS, it was part of the BIG WINS agenda for the refinery industry to get Nigerians involved in the value chain. It is the same way we are addressing the flare down opportunity, gas commercialization and the rest of them. So, it is all tailored towards that.
We are involved in the Waltersmith bid, the other day we signed an agreement for equity participants with Azikel refinery. It is important that journalists visit the site as work is ongoing. Presently, the tanks are being erected and the detail design is about to be commissioned. There is a timeline for this and the Board will catalyze those activities. We are regulatory agency with developmental agenda as part of it. We catalyzed those processes as they get on, we pull out and focuses on other things we will do. We are also looking seriously at the gas value chain. How can we support the federal government policy on LPG penetration? That is the way government works to enunciate the policy and agencies of government, see how they fit in to support government agenda. That’s all we are doing. Doing what the government’s wants us to focus on.
How long will it take before you pull out?
It depends, once it comes onstream, they might ask us they want to buy us out which is okay even if it is a year, two years or three years, it depends on when they want us to get out of that kind of investment. We have a target date at some point we just move out.
Still on the issue of mini refinery, much is not being said about Ogbele refinery. We have heard a lot about Niger Delta Exploration and Production Company’s Ogbele refinery that it is a mini refinery producing diesel, Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, and other products in the value chain. Beyond what the company’s executives say, we don’t hear anything from either the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC or NCDMB. Why?
Like you know it is a private entity. They do their own developmental project, if they want you to know about it, they will tell you and if they want the world to know, they will say it. But the ND Western developed 1000 per day barrels modular refinery which they have been operating for years, they didn’t talk about it until they started talking about modular refinery, then we knew that they have done something already.
I am aware that they are trying to upscale that to about 5000 barrels but it is a private company. If they want us to know they will tell us, they are doing their own investment, it is a marginal field operator and it is their own investment process which we welcome. But I can assure you that the project is ongoing on a private level.
Is there anyway you follow up activity or regulate local refinery operator?
Obviously, we followed them up and we try to see what they do. Right now, we are trying to encourage more of it to get on. Like you know part of what we have in Niger Delta, good number of people trying to refine crude in the process the environment is degraded but we have to organize them in modular form. Small refineries every where at some point you cave out those who are producing crude oil and degrade the environment which has to stop. We know what they are doing even though they don’t make too much noise about it. Some of them are private entity. We only step in to put things in order.
We follow you very well on twitter and discussions there as well. There is this recurring question on twitter about recruitment in the Board. It is believed that NCDMB has never done public recruitment. What can you say about this?
We have not done public or we have not done private?
I mean open recruitment and when will that be?
I don’t know. When it will happen you will know, it has to go through the government process of recruitment, it is not a private company, it is also watched and regulated by government itself. It must go through that process and when it will happen you will know.
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