22 September 2012, Sweetcrude, LAGOS – CHEVRON Nigeria Limited, CNL, has, through its Escravos-Gas-to-Liquids project, EGTL, awarded contract worth over $2 billion to local contractors.
Andrew Fawthrop disclosed this to Ernest Nwapa, the Executive Secretary of Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB, who visited the EGTL project site with his team to assess the Nigerian Content impact of the project.
Fawthrop said the project had brought significant benefits to the local communities, maintaining that it had impacted positively on the economy of Delta state.
According to him, the project has also contributed in the resuscitation of the Warri port to level that it became the second busiest port in the country.
He spoke of other benefits accruing from the EGTL project, saying the project has utilised over 3,500 hundred suppliers and contractors from the local communities and has engaged more than 14,000 skilled and unskilled Nigerian workers, of which over 60% are from the local communities.
“When the project is fully operational, it will employ nearly 500 persons, mostly Nigerians,” he said.
Nwapa, on his part, advised that local community contractors re-invest funds from EGTL contracts to their communities and to take their newly acquired skills and competence to a higher level.
Project Manager of Tomba Resources Nigeria Ltd, Malik Jubril, on behalf of the local community contractors, expressed gratitude to CNL.
“Thanks to the EGTL project and its engagement of local community contractors, my company now has a staff of over 60 and 350 contract staff on its pay roll,” he said.
Besides awarding sub-contracts worth over $2 billion to local community contractors, EGTL has also sent 234 Nigerians on a 30-month training programme in South Africa at the Synthetic Fuel Facilities of Sasol.
EGTL has also trained more than 7,000 Nigerians in technical skill crafts, plant operation and maintenance, business and project management, logistics and supply chain management, gas tungsten arc welding, GTAW, and shield metal arc welding, SMAW, processes.
