Engr. Simbi Wabote, Executive Secretary of NCDMB
…NCDMB focuses on initiatives and partnership with the aim at achieving gas development in line with President Buhari declaration of “Decade of Gas.”
…NCDMB to support Ministry of Trade and Investment to position oil and gas industry for emerging opportunities in AFCFTA.
…Board also plays significant role in supporting government’s initiatives towards national mass metering program to bridge gap in local production of electric meters.
-By Felix Douglas
Giving his keynote address at the 10th edition of Practical Nigerian Content (PNC) which was held in Bayelsa State, south-south Nigeria, Executive Secretary (ES) of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Engr. Simbi Wabote, said PNC is one of the key communication platforms that the Board uses to engage its stakeholders on its activities. He revealed that since the launch of the 10-year Strategic Roadmap in 2018, NCDMB has utilized PNC to share its report card on the status of its journey to 70% Nigerian Content in the oil and gas industry adding that the theme for this year’s event “Driving Nigerian Content in the New Dawn of the Petroleum Industry Act’’ is apt.
Wabote commended members of the National Assembly, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, and President Muhammadu Buhari for their roles in ensuring that the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) became a reality.
“The PIA (2021) has further reinforced the role of NCDMB in the oil and gas industry and we are poised to fully utilize the opportunity provided to derive maximum benefit for our country.
In line with our tradition in NCDMB to provide updates on our commitments from previous conferences, the outline of my opening keynote address will be in two parts; first, I will provide the current status of the promises we made in 2019, and secondly, I will provide our action plans for next year 2022, Wabote added.”
The NCDMB helmsman made it known that the Board’s 10-year Strategic Roadmap is built on five pillars and four enablers.
The Pillars are: Technical Capability Development, Compliance & Enforcement, Enabling Business Environment, Organizational Capability and Sectorial & Regional Market Linkages
While the enablers are: Funding, Regulatory Environment, Collaboration & Stakeholder Engagement and Research & Statistics.
Each of the pillars and enablers is backed by initiatives which are aimed at achieving the 70% Nigerian content level in the oil and gas industry by the year 2027.
Starting with Technical Capability Development Pillar, Wabote said NCDMB has made progressive works on NOGaPS, provide sea time training for 40 Marine cadets, upgrade 2 vocational education centers, set up 5 ICT laboratories, Train 1,000 teachers in STEM education, and commission the 5,000 bpd Waltersmith Modular Refinery in Imo State.
NCDMB has delivered on the 5,000bpd Waltersmith Modular Refinery which was commissioned by the President in November 2020.
He said the 2,500 bpd Duport Modular Refinery situated at Egbokor in Edo State is also scheduled for commissioning by end of 2021 while construction works have progressed at the NOGAPS sites in Bayelsa and Cross River states in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The industrial parks in Cross River and Bayelsa states are scheduled to be commissioned in the 4th quarter of 2022 which is one of the key requirements to commence operations is the provision of reliable power generation and distribution.
NCDMB has concluded arrangements with Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria (GACN) and INFINI Power Limited for provision of reliable power to the two industrial parks in 2022.
On Human Capacity Development, Wabote disclosed that NCDMB has facilitated sea-time international experience for 59 marine cadets, and commissioned two (2) Vocational Education institutions at Abak, Akwa Ibom state and at Amoli in Enugu State.
As part of efforts aimed at achieving gas development in line with President Buhari declaration of the ‘’Decade of Gas’’, the Board is focused on some of its initiatives and partnership on the gas sector
In collaboration with Rungas, NCDMB is constructing a 1.2 million units per annum capacity LPG composite cylinder manufacturing plant in Bayelsa and Lagos States. The Factory Acceptance Test of the equipment is in progress at the moment.
The Board is also collaborating with Chimons to build a 5,000MT LPG loading and receiving terminal in Koko – Delta State and it is teaming up with Butane Energy limited to build LPG storage/bottling plants and LPG depots in Kaduna, Bauchi, Katsina, Kano, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau, Gombe, Zamfara, Jigawa and Abuja.
NCDMB will be commissioning the first 100MT storage and bottling plant in Katsina soon.
Also, in partnership with Brass Fertilizer, we are developing a 10,000 tonnes/day Methanol Production Facility at Brass Island, Bayelsa State.
Part of the long-term initiative under the 10-year roadmap is to develop a shipyard in Nigeria. Thus, the Board has completed Feasibility Study of the Brass Island Shipyard which confirms the technical and commercial viability of the project. Site selection study, bathymetric survey and geotechnical survey have been completed in readiness to commence FEED studies.
The shipyard will be implemented in two phases starting with ship repairs and maintenance while the second phase will cater for ship building.
NCDMB is also collaborating with Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) is on track with the formation of sub-committees to drive areas of synergies.
To this end, the Board has deployed a new guideline for Marine Vessel Categorization module and have commenced the issuance of the Nigerian Content Marine Vessel Certificate.
Forensic audit of the NCDF remittances in the period 2010 – 2017 have been largely completed with significant recoveries realized.
Wabote commended the disposition of most of the operators and service companies to clean up their books, “I implore those still stalling about close-out of the forensic audit exercise to do the needful to prevent imposition of regulatory sanctions.”
“In year 2022, our focus for the compliance & enforcement pillar is to increase our monitoring coverage over the oil and gas industry.
We will drive the close-out of undisputed and disputed remittances and apply necessary sanctions where applicable.
We will commence Phase-2 of the Forensic Audit of the NCDF Remittances covering the period from 2018 to 2020.”
Wabote stated that the calendar of conferences hosted by NCDMB is getting busy with events such as Nigerian Oil and Gas Opportunity Fair (NOGOF), the NCDMB Research & Development Fair and Conference (R&D Fair), African Local Content Roundtable (ALCR), Nigerian Content Managers Workshop, Women in Oil and Gas Conference, and others being developed.
“Our intervention in the telecoms sector has led to the training of almost 4,000 youths in Kano, Kaduna, Cross River, and Yobes states on GSM hardware repairs and software development.
We have also participated in several collaborative engagements with our brothers and sisters in African countries on how to further deepen local content practice.”
The NCDMB ES said in 2022, the Board will partake in various initiatives being put in place by the Federal Ministry of Trade and Investment to position the oil and gas industry for the emerging opportunities in the Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AFCFTA).
On the aspect of funding, NCDMB commitment was to implement modalities to extend Nigerian Content Intervention Fund to some targeted stakeholder groups in the industry.
He noted that NCDMB has expanded the size of funds for the Nigerian Content Intervention Fund from $200million to $400million with $350 million from the Board and $50million from NEXIM Bank. Additional products for working capital and loans for Women in oil and gas were also introduced.
NEXIM Bank has completed processing of the loan approval for the first set of beneficiaries of the funds under their management.
At the peak of the pandemic in 2020, the Board secured approval to reduce the interest rates payable from 8% to 6% as well as apply waiver on repayment of principals by two years in line with Federal Government palliatives to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on local businesses.
Within one year, NCDMB has built and maintained close collaboration with sister agencies, supervising Ministry and other MDA’s such as NNPC, NAPIMS, defunct DPR, Ministry of Interior, Government Security Agencies, NIMASA, among others.
NCDMB has established Research and Development Incubation Center and completed data analytics on fabrication and Engineering companies in Nigeria in collaboration with the National Bureau for Statistics.
Commercialization of Research finding has yielded result with the approval of partnership with Amal Technologies for the setting up a state-of-the-art factory to produce hardware, embedded systems, and other technological devices in Nigeria thus making it the first fully commercial printed circuit board manufacturer in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The plant will produce Smart Gas/Smoke Detector Alarm devices that monitors and detects smoke and all types of gas leakages (especially LPG), calls the user’s mobile phone if the intensity of the gas is getting high and automatically shut off the valve of the gas cylinder using Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence technology.
It is worthy of note that the facility, also has the capacity to produce more than two million Advanced Smart Electric Meters in Nigeria. This will support the Federal Government’s initiatives towards the national mass metering program thus bridging the gap in local production of electric meters.
Wabote pointed out on the implementation of the Roadmap, NCDMB has carried out analysis of its journey to 70% Nigerian Content to determine the level of Nigerian Content based on the various initiatives:
Five areas monitored for evaluation of Nigerian Content are Engineering, Procurement, Fabrication, Project Management, and Services.
Based on projects covered by NCDMB Monitoring and Evaluation Directorate, a total of $20.4billion was spend on these 5 categories between 2016 and 2020.
The top 3 industry spend are $8.07billion on Fabrication representing 39% of spend; $4.74billion on Engineering services representing 23% of spending, and $5.67billion on Procurement of manufactured materials representing 28% of spend.
The low spends were $1.18billion on Services representing 6% of spend and $746million on project management representing 4% of spend.
Based on the above data, the aggregated level of Nigerian Content across the five categories is established as 42%.
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