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Nigeria, Norway invest US$2.8m on local content training pact
2006.12.27By Yemie Adeoye
Tuesday, December 26, 2006
THE Governments of Norway and Nigeria commenced moves to invest about US$2.8 million to train Nigerian fabricators for effective competition in the upstream sector of the Petroleum industry and to boost the local content policy in both countries.
This was disclosed by Mrs C. N. Njoku, an Assistant Director at the Department of Petroleum Resources during a seminar on deep offshore oil and gas production in Lagos recently.
The project which is said to be on a 50-50 basis for implementation, is to be managed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC).
She stated further that the discoveries from the deep offshore terrain offer new opportunities for Nigeria to correct past mistakes on resource management and local content just as it offers challenges that must be tackled to realize the full potentials.
"Capacity-building is a vital issue in this regard and Nigeria needs to build the right competencies in critical areas to ensure that more of the planned spending on deepwater projects is domiciled in-country. The service sector needs to pool skills and resources to enable it compete as credible value-added centers in this process.
Direct training interven-tion will also be a solution and that is why we welcome the INTSOK fabrication upgrade initiatives and other competency-building schemes now being put in place across the industry.
She noted that the imperatives of deepwater operations also dictate that we should perpetually find ways to keep down the production cost per barrel in order to effectively compete with resources from other areas.
As experience have shown in more mature deep water regions of the world, especially the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, the keys to cutting costs consists in consciously seeking out cost-reduction solutions through R&D, and application of prudent field development and reservoir management strategies. In this regard, we should start to rethink our field development strategies and fashion out cost cutting solutions that could encourage more collaboration between operators," she said.
On Gas utilization, Njoku stated that it continues to have environmental implications for the nation, and that the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) is currently working with the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) on fashioning out an efficient regulation to maximize the abundant gas resources in Nigeria.
The discoveries from the deep offshore terrain is also said to offer new opportunities for Nigeria to correct past mistakes on resource management and local content. It also offers challenges that must be tackled to realize the full potentials.
"Nigeria needs to build the right competencies in critical areas to ensure that more of the planned spending on deepwater projects is domiciled in-country.
"The service sector needs to pool skills and resources to enable it compete as credible value-added centers in this process," she said.
Regions : Africa
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