The Oil and Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria (OGTAN), yesterday, raised the alarm that it lost about $2billion in the last 12 months due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
OGTAN President, Mr. Mayowa Afe, stated this at a media briefing to announce activities lined up for its 2021 Annual General Meeting/Lecture series.
Afe lamented that as soon as the pandemic broke out, most oil and gas companies cancelled trainings for their workforce while those that didn’t, reduced their training budget.
The OGTAN President said for every oil and gas contract in the country, three per cent of the contract sum was to be set aside for training, saying the COVID-19 pandemic eroded all those gains.
He disclosed that COVID-19 compelled most oil and gas firms to cancel contracts because the resources to execute contracts was just not available, a development which he said impacted negatively on the fortunes of OGTAN members.
He further explained that, at a production capacity of 1.22 million barrels of oil per day at an average price of $75 per barrel, divided by 3 per cent of those that are supposed to be on training, which later dropped to almost negative, gives an average of $2 billion per annum loss for trainers.
Afe said despite the fact that OGTAN members were out of job, they could not afford to shut down their operations and, as such, they have to keep running recurrent expenditure which included payment of salaries and wages, maintenance of office facilities, among others.
He lamented that most OGTAN members had depleted their savings, which ought to be for expansion purposes, but had to be spent on payment of salaries and running cost. He said once there is no expansion in the activities of OGTAN members, the ripple effect of such could span over a period of five to 10 years.
