By Emeka Ugwuanyi
When the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) rolled out its 10-year strategic roadmap in 2017, little did anyone know that in six years almost all the objectives of the roadmap will achieved.
At the end of 2017, the Board launched its 10-year strategic roadmap aimed at increasing Nigerian Content in the oil and gas industry to 70% by the year 2027.
The Board clearly spelt out five pillars and four enablers that would drive the focus areas under which the roadmap would be achieved, each supported with short, medium, and long-term initiatives.
Presently, the roadmap journey has been transformational from the Board started to the impressive point it is now.
Delivering his keynote address on Tuesday at the ongoing 12th edition of Practical Nigerian Content (PNC) Forum in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, The Executive Secretary/CEO of NCDMB, Engr. Simbi Wabote highlighted how the roadmap journey has fared.
Wabote said: “We have completed 83% of the 96 initiatives under the strategic roadmap with focus now shifting to the remaining initiatives that require some heavy lifting to bring into fruition. With the support of the industry, our sponsors, principals, advocates, staff, contractors, host communities, and even critics, the transformational impact of the delivery of these initiatives has been of resounding success.
“Under the roadmap, the technical operations data in NOGIC-JQS shows that the number of registered industry operators moved from fifty-three (53) in 2018 to one hundred and fourteen (114) in 2023 representing about 100% increase. Within the same period, service companies increased from 8,000 to 11,000 while individual registrations increased from 140,000 to almost 400,000.
“Certification of Nigerian Content (NC) Plans increased from 178 in 2022 to 255 in 2023 while the approved NC Compliance Certificates dropped from 197 in 2022 to 168 in 2023.
“We believe the higher certified Nigerian Content (NC) Plans in 2023 will soon translate to approving contracts with NC Compliance Certificates as the industry gets accustomed to the policy directions of the new government.
“To shorten contracting cycle to a max of 6 months, a new SLA-MoU has been signed with industry operators and NNPC Limited.”
The NCDMB boss also stated that a total of 889 EQs were approved in 2022 while 179 EQs were rejected. The expatriate quota approval is trending down in the last five years. This year, a total of 1,156 EQs were approved at the end of November compared to 889 approved in 2022. 328 EQs were compared 179 rejected last year.
“The expatriate quota approval has been trending down from up till 2021 when it started an upward trend largely due attributed to the post-COVID-19 business recovery, newly sanctioned projects such as Train-7, and the passage of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) of 2021.
“Under the Technical Capability Development pillar of the roadmap, our in-country fabrication capacity moved from 60,000tons per year to 250,000tons/year.
“Under this pillar, we have transformed two of our portfolio of NOGAPS sites from bare land to industrial parks to support in-country manufacturing and assembly of equipment and input materials required for exploration and production activities.
“While these two NOGAPS sites are essentially ready for commissioning, we are keen to operationalize it by having manufacturing activities in place which is scheduled for first half of next year.
“A total of 37 applications have been received for allocation of service plots and or shop floors so far and the process of allocation of serviced plots to manufacturers is in top-gear and so far, service plots/ shop floors have been allocated to six companies. At the moment, we have reached an advanced stage in our review of the Business Plans of intending tenants and another batch of allocations will soon be made.
“Under the strategic roadmap, we set up a dedicated $50million fund to co-finance industry research and development activities. The Research and Development Fund led to the development of Amal Tech Smoke Alarm Detector Facility that we will commission next week in Abuja.
“We created Centres of Excellence for research and development in six Nigerian Universities as well as created the Technology Incubation and Innovation Centre to incubate innovative ideas/startups. Seventeen start-up companies successfully concluded Training at the NCDMB Technology Incubation and Innovation Centre (TIIC).
On Human Capacity Development, Wabote said the Board identified existing technical/vocational or craft centers and carried out intervention programs to strengthen the institutions such as Government Technical College in Abak, Akwa Ibom State, GTC Port Harcourt, GTC Amoli, University of Ibadan, University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State University, University of Lagos, Nigerian Maritime University, and many others. The HCD programmes has enabled training and provision of sea-time exposure to marine cadets, underwater divers, boat builders, NDT Level-3 certified engineers.
Also, the NCDMB ICT Intervention programmes in secondary schools in promotion of STEM education remain very popular and in high demand with over 100 ICT and Science Labs completed to date. The teachers are not left out with almost 2,000 of teachers trained on STEM Education and use of K-YAN Device.
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