Govt raises team on national gas expansion programme
The 10 years’ strategic roadmap embarked upon since 2018, is on course to achieving 70 per cent Nigerian manpower content level in the Nigerian oil and gas sector, the Executive Secretary, Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Simbi Wabote, has said.
This is even as the Federal Government has raised a committee to position Nigeria as a gas hub in African. Speaking at the ground-breaking of Rungas LPG Composite Cylinder Manufacturing Plant, in Polaku, Bayelsa State, Wabote recalled that the Board developed a 10-Year Strategic Roadmap in 2017, and commenced its implementation in January 2018, with an ambitious goal of achieving 70 percent Nigerian Content level by the year 2027.
He explained: “Technical capability development is one of the pillars of our Strategic Roadmap meant to facilitate the building of manufacturing facilities and capabilities to support in-country manufacturing and assembly of equipment and input materials required for exploration and production activities.”
He hinted that the roadmap provided the leverage to use the Polaku land for gas-related activities, and partner with Rungas Limited to setup LPG Cylinder Manufacturing Plant; Shell Nigeria Gas to set up Pressure Reduction and Metering Station, and Total Support Energy Limited for the provision of compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) mother-stations.
Shedding more light on the Board’s new strategies for the Polaku land, Wabote added: “Within a year of changing the direction towards gas, we have finalized partnerships with three investors with four hectares of the land already taken up.”
On his part, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, who unveiled the NCDMB Gas Hub, and performed the ground breaking ceremony, revealed that the gas hub is sited on the 10.6 hectares of land, which the Board had purchased from the Polaku Community in 2013, for the purpose of establishing a pipe mill.
But discussions with various investors regarding set up of the pipe mill did not yield desired results, which forced the Board to re-strategize on how to utilize the land for productive uses.
Sylva said the project is in furtherance of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration to diversify the Nigerian economy by developing the nation’s huge gas resources across the entire value chain, adding that the event is a practical demonstration of the declaration of 2020 as a year of gas.
Commenting on the NCDMB gas hub, Sylvia said: “The location of this land is close to the Gbarain Gas Plant that produces more than one billion standard cubic feet per day of gas; and provides opportunities to leverage the proximity to activate value adding initiatives, and lead to industrialization and multiple economic activities.”
On the Rungas facility, the Minster noted that achieving LPG penetration across Nigeria will require targeted interventions directed at both the demand and supply end of the value-chain, especially in making LPG the preferred choice for cooking fuel.
He said the plant will have the capacity to produce between 400,000 to one million LPG composite cylinders yearly, which will make the cylinders accessible and affordable to Nigerians as well as create employment opportunities during its construction and operations phase.
