The fabrication of the Floating Production Storage Off-loading, FPSO, for Total E&P Egina oilfield project is estimated to boost local content development up from current levels of 10 percent to about 15 percent.
The Managing Director, Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics, LADOL Base, Dr. Amy Jadesimi, who disclosed this in Lagos, said upon the completion of the facility, other FPSO’s can berth there.
According to her, “this is a huge milestone; what it means is that every FPSO from now on can come to Nigeria and local content can finally reach beyond the 10 to 15 percent level.
“We have been stuck at that 10 percent level, why? Because of capacity, if you do not even have a place where the FPSO can berth, then what are you talking about? So we have to first build the capacity and this FPSO is very critical because this is the most complicated, most expensive facility you have to build.
“Once you build the facility, other people can now come in to invest millions and they can contribute and benefit from this whole exercise we are engaged in to make Nigeria a hub.”
The Egina FPSO is expected to be one of the largest in the world with the capacity to store about two million barrels, and the first FPSO to be integrated onshore in Nigeria.
She said: “The value of the whole Egina project is about $14 billion – $15 billion, but Samsung’s part of it is about $3.8 billion.
“What we are saying is now that we have this facility at LADOL, we will be able to achieve up to 50 percent local content. So not only are we creating jobs, we are domesticating activities and therefore conserving foreign currencies because we are now charging in naira.
“This facility is a game changer; once you change the game, it is just a question of making sure that we have enough additional investment, more participants, particularly from the indigenous side so that we can increase our capacity enough to meet the demand.
“The other thing that we are looking at which is very important is the human capacity development. This is very important; the work we are doing in LADOL has never been done in Nigeria before.
“In a low oil price environment they are looking for cost savings and Nigerians are cheaper than South Koreans. Also, these projects are necessary to support the diversification away from oil and gas. The facility in LADOL can be used to do any kind of steel fabrication – we can do railways, we can do pre-fabrication steel for hospitals, we can build bridges and we can also do for factories.
“The cranes we have inside the facility are the heaviest in the whole of Africa, even if you go to South Africa; they do not have what we have in Nigeria now. So when we say this is a game charger, this is a real game charger”.
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