…Henceforth, after 3yrs, oil firms can no longer employ expatriates
Equatorial Guinea has taken new measures to boost local content in the oil and gas industry. One of such steps is that it is henceforth limited to three years the period during which companies operating in the country’s oil and gas industry can employ foreign labour and expatriates.
The country said yesterday in a published Ministerial Order that this is in line with its efforts to ensure that the country’s recovery benefits local job creation and national content development. The move, the Order said is “to encourage the hiring of local workforce.”
The order follows years of successful capacity building and training within local companies and local labour in Equatorial Guinea, which has produced a well-trained pool of local talent, the information said, adding that the country’s General Directorate of National Content will be responsible for the monitoring of compliance to the order.
“With the release of this new order, the ministry of mines and hydrocarbons intends to enhance the capacity of local services companies, while guaranteeing the creation of local jobs for our trained and educated youths,” declared minister of mines and hydrocarbons, Gabriel Lima.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the current oil crisis, Equatorial Guinea has been adopting a new approach to ensure the retention and increase of foreign investments into the country, while maximising the hiring and procurement of local goods and services so the recovery benefits its local economy.
Last week, the country extended by two years all exploration programmes across its acreages to allow foreign operators to regroup and plan for better expenditure on seismic and exploratory drilling.
Such measures are being rolled out as Equatorial Guinea implements a series of landmark projects across its upstream, midstream and downstream industries which are expected to generate local jobs. The backfill project is already ongoing to pool supply from stranded gas in the Gulf of Guinea and replace declining output from the Alba Field.
Meanwhile, the country’s ongoing Year of Investment is said to have generated strong interest from various existing and new players in Equatorial Guinea to build and expand midstream and downstream infrastructure and maximise local processing and transformation of domestic crude oil and natural gas.
Chibisi Ohakah
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