Following the recent signing of the local content bill into law by the Acting President Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, stakeholders have commended the passage and at the same time cautioned that the implementation process be made to include multinationals transferring their expertise to the local practitioners.
While acknowledging the need for Nigerians to participate in the upstream and downstream activities of the oil sector so as to conserve all foreign exchange in the country, the stakeholders also lament the poor level of expertise by the indigenous companies currently in the trade. Apart from this, they also harped on the need for more indigenous companies to come into the oil and gas sector.
Managing Director of an indigenous oil firm: Odafe Atlantic Petroleum Limited, Mr. Odaferibede Ribede who spoke with Shipping Position Weekly on the issue said “one thing we should understand as we are entering into the local content law era is that we must allow the foreign experts to play a 20 percent role. By this I mean that Nigerians must be allowed to learn from their expertise, in every sector of engineering and fabrications, Nigerians must be allowed to learn and acquire knowledge, a transfer of technology comes into play there and that is when we will know the advantage and benefit of the local content”.
He also continued that “If you go to the upstream, where we have the experts, most of the complicated secrets are still being kept secret by them which I think is wrong and if they should leave with those technologies, they will leave Nigerians handicapped, you and I know that. So in Shell, Chevron or any of the other upstream participations, the cards must be played open”
Odafe also said that “Our Ajaokuta steel complex and most of our steel companies that are still in existence will have to be put in a full swing now so that we will no longer take our fabrications and ship buildings overseas. Most of the companies here will be busy fabricating parts for the vessels and the drilling rigs that we have, however we must allow our craftsmen and engineers to develop their skills overtime” he said.
Another industry stakeholder Mr. Danmanu Balla, the depot Manager at Rahamanniyya Oil and Gas Limited who also spoke to our correspondent said that the industry has a yearning need for more indigenous participation to come in.
He said that “local players have been eager to have full participation in the sector and we have seen the signing of this law as a way of encouraging local participants thrive and this we foresee that in the nearest future will not need foreign experts to come and have dominance of our upstream” he added.
While speaking on the down stream activities of the sector, he clamoured for the banks to make sure that they take a role in the whole process and assist indigenous participants by making loans available to them. “For now in the downstream sector, product supply is still being dominated by the PPMC, though they are not doing badly as a matter of fact, they are trying but for it to be sustained, the banks need to back up the indigenous participants and give them a chance” he said.
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