The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Engr. Simbi Kesiye Wabote has disclosed that four major projects being developed by investors in partnership with the board would be completed before the end of 2021.
Engr. Wabote made the disclosure at a one-day workshop on the “NCDMB Roadmap: A Catalyst for the Industrialization of Nigeria 2017-2027,” organized recently in Abuja by the Reform Coordination and Service Improvement Department of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
According to the NCDMB boss, the projects include the Rungas facility in Polaku, Bayelsa State which is estimated to manufacture 400,000 units of composite Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders per annum and BUNORR production plant in Port Harcourt, Rivers State capital. This is estimated to produce 48,000 litres of base oil per day.
Other projects include upgrade and expansion of NEDO Gas’ 80 million standard cubic feet per day gas processing facility and 300 million standard cubic feet per day KGG manifold in Delta State and DUPORT Midstream Limited’s Energy Park, which comprises 2,500 barrels of crude oil per day modular refinery, 40 million standard cubic feet per day gas processing plant and 2 megawatts power plant.
Engr. Wabote said that five LPG storage/bottling plants and six LPG depots being developed in partnership with Butane Energy Limited in 10 states in the Northern part of Nigeria and Abuja the capital territory, would be completed in two phases: six will be completed in the first quarter of 2022 and the rest in the fourth quarter of 2022, with the opportunity to create 1,900 direct, indirect, and induced jobs.
He further noted that the NCDMB was partnering with the Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics Base (LADOL) to develop a 24 megawatts power plant at Takwa Bay, Lagos State to provide uninterrupted power supply to the free zone that hosts key facilities required to service the oil and gas industry. The project, according to him, is expected to generate 400 jobs.
He said that the board’s partnership investments cut across modular refineries, LPG value chain and other areas; saying that the board had 23 project sites spread across Abuja, Bayelsa, Bauchi, Delta, Edo, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Kano, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau, Rivers, and Zamfara states.
Engr. Wabote also explained that the NCDMB committed equity investments into strategic projects that align with the government’s policies with a view to catalyzing them to success and would exit once those businesses become successful. According to him, the investments were also in line with the board’s vision “to be a catalyst for the industrialization of the Nigerian oil and gas industry and its linkage sectors.”
Furthermore, Engr. Wabote who also spoke on the activities of NCDMB and the Nigerian Content 10-year Strategic Roadmap reported that the board has recorded considerable progress, especially as it has grown Nigerian Content from 26 percent to 35 percent within four years. He said that the board’s target is to reach 70 percent by 2027.
Additionally, Engr. Wabote described the US$350m Nigerian Content Intervention Fund, which provides affordable and accessible credit to qualified oil and gas companies as one of the most successful funding schemes in the country, saying that the repayment rate by beneficiaries has been 99 percent.
Also speaking during the workshop, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Dr. Nasir Sani Gwarzo, extolled NCDMB for its achievements.
Dr. Gwarzo who said that the board was on the right trajectory in implementing its mandates and impacting linkage sectors charged the Engr. Wabote to remain committed to the same trajectory of deepening local content implementation for the benefit of the economy and Nigerians.
He added that the workshop was the first edition of an enlightenment series conceived to educate personnel in the oil and gas ministry on the operations of agencies under it. He therefore expressed hope that other ministries would inaugurate similar programmes and use them to build an informed and reformed civil service.
By Sunday Elom
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