The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has pledged rock solid support for Nigerian oil and gas service companies as part of efforts to sustain the impressive growth in local content and boost their production operations.
The Executive Secretary of NCDMB, Engr. Felix Omatsola Ogbe, gave the assurance during a facility tour of the 10,000-square-metre fabrication yard of Lee Engineering and Construction Company Limited, Warri, Delta State, on Friday.
Ogbe, who had paid similar visits to other service companies across the country, reiterated that he was highly impressed with facilities and competencies acquired in the pursuit of local content development.
He said he was amazed at the assortment of top-grade engineering equipment and industrial machinery parts in the expansive operational base of the company.
“I’ve come, I’ve seen. I’m so impressed with your facilities”, Engr. Ogbe enthused, praising the firm on its 34years of active engagement in engineering, construction, operations, and maintenance (EPCOM) services with major oil and gas industry players, such as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCO), Chevron Nigeria Limited, ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies Limited, among others, as clients.
He noted that the company has successfully undertaken over 350 major projects in the industry and has an excellent record of “zero incident, zero downtime” in its decades of operations.
“I will collaborate with your company and ensure that jobs you can do will come here. We’re here as enablers to business, and I will work with any company that can increase production in the country”, the Executive Secretary added.
Ogbe also expressed interest in the company’s solar technology, which he said, would be required to provide electricity to ICT centres established by the NCDMB in several secondary schools across the Niger Delta and other parts of the country.
In his speech, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the firm, Chief Leemon Ikpea, thanked the Executive Secretary and his entourage for the facility visit.
He said the company, whose corporate headquarters is in Ikoyi, Lagos, was incorporated in 1991, and currently has several subsidiaries operating in Warri, Port Harcourt, as well as in Europe and the United States.
Ikpea stated how the state of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria was in the early 1990s, noting that the dominance of foreign companies and production inputs, and the attendant massive capital flight was exceedingly disturbing and ruinous to the nation’s economy, and that Nigerian engineers in the sector like him became agitated and initiated the push for local content.
According to him, the enactment of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD] Act, 2010, marked a turning point for the industry and the nation as indigenous oil and gas companies were thus enabled to vie for and execute projects.
“Foreign companies cannot transfer technology to us. It is only indigenous companies that could and have demonstrated such potential through intensive capacity building programmes, acquisition and deployment of hi-tech operational equipment and actual execution of projects”, he said.
The company’s CEO drew attention to the company’s feats in industrial equipment manufacture, the over 350 projects executed by the firm, saying it includes the Utorogu Gas Plant and the 150,000-barrel-per day Odidi Flow Station, and a workforce of 3,500 Nigerians to buttress his claim regarding the remarkable success achieved by indigenous companies.
“This is a sign that local content is working. I thank the NCDMB for living up to the billing as an enabler of businesses”, he said.
A statement from the Corporate Communications Directorate of the Board says that on the entourage of the NCDMB’s Executive Secretary to the firm included the General Manager, Corporate Communications and Zonal Coordination, Barrister Esueme Dan Kikile; Senior Technical Assistant to the Executive Secretary, Engr. Mofe Megbele; Zonal Coordinator, Delta and Edo States Engr. James Eyetigha; amongst others.
