Nwapa calls for local investment in technology

PORT HARCOURT: Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB, Mr Ernest Nwapa, has charged indigenous oil and gas companies to grow local technology for the sector.

Speaking in Port Harcourt during the inauguration of the rotating machines maintenance workshop by Benkline Nigeria Limited, Nwapa reminded key stakeholders in the oil and gas sector in the country that Nigeria is a big market for indigenous technological development.

“We are challenging the indigenous producer to begin to partner and patronise local service companies so that the market will expand. The market in Nigeria is big on its own but we often fail to realise that. Nigeria is often seen as salvation location by other African countries. Nigeria is expected to lead and be a place they can come for support. If we do not take that opportunity, then we are failing in our responsibility. If we can do services here, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea and more will come here. If we have a consolidated economy, this will be where everybody will like to come,” he said.

Assuring that the federal government will continue to support investment in local technology Nwapa advised that those behind them should make sure they meet international standards. He further commended Benkilne for its effort in growing local technology for the sector.

“Benkline is a trail blazer and by your capacity to attract this caliber of Original Equipment Manufacturers, you have moved a few steps ahead of the Board’s plans. We are operating a system where we want OEMs to adopt Nigerian companies and work with them and you are doing this voluntarily. Several pumps from the Nigerian oil and gas industry had been moved out of the country for repairs in the past, but if we have a few companies like Benkline, there will be a reverse migration of technology into the country,” he noted.

Continuing, he said about $5billion worth of investment had gone into the local economy from effort to grow indigenous technology in the sector, stressing that the government will always support move to develop indigenous technology.

“This government is going to support every investment that is made here. If you tally the total value of where we have visited to commission facilities in the last four years, you will have $5billion worth of investments in this economy, just by insisting these things are done in our economy. So you can imagine where we would be in the next five years.

“Our commitment is that any investment that is made in Nigeria, we would wrestle anybody to the ground to make sure that work is put in there. If you want to continue in this business, you must do it the way it is done or even better than in other jurisdictions. That is the only guarantee that will make you have a sustainable business,” he advised.

Meanwhile, Nwapa has noted that the implementation of the Nigerian Content Act has attracted a new crop of Nigerian investors who are no longer satisfied playing second fiddle to the expatriates, but rather determined to commit huge resources in owning hi-tech assets and facilities.

The Executive Secretary also said that many Nigerians were no longer interested in acting as agents for foreign partners, but “were investing alongside their partners, learning how to manage the business and operate complex equipment, repair and even do research and development.”

Nwapa noted that the newly developed confidence of the Nigerian investors validate the wisdom of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan in signing the Nigerian Content Bill into law in 2010. So also the commitment of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke in supporting its implementation in a structured and sustainable manner.

According to him, “We are happy that the industry has come to accept this as a way of life and we no longer have to push and pull in all directions. What is going on today is a continuous collaboration between the government and the industry, between Nigerian companies and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs).”

He dispelled the notion that the Board was forcing OEMs to set up in Nigeria, stressing that the local oil and gas industry provided sufficient business and market to justify investments in-country.

He maintained that many locations overseas where services were hitherto performed for Nigeria’s petroleum industry before the Act were now smaller and less equipped than most facilities being set up by Nigerians since the law came into force.