OpeOluwani Akintayo
24 September 2017, Sweetcrude, Lagos — The Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Dr. Maikanti Baru, has assured that the 200, 000 barrels per day Egina project will boost involvement of local industries.
According to a statement by the NNPC on Sunday, Egina will support the Nigerian Content Act which has given rise to a number of opportunities within the industry which include the emergence of new local vendors and suppliers; training and mentoring of young engineers; improvement of artisanal and other new skill sets critical to the industry.
Dr. Baru further said the NNPC would always support initiatives aimed at domesticating the ample opportunities in the oil and gas industry which promise to improve thousands of lives in the country.
“There will be room for more of these opportunities in the nearest future as we are fully committed and determined to achieving sustainable domestication of a large percentage of the other modules on the Egina project. We will continue to touch your lives in many more positive ways,” he assured.
He then called on all stakeholders within the local content community to sustain the tempo of promoting the huge impact by replicating similar new projects on a larger scale across the industry.
He said as a partner in the Egina Project, the NNPC in 2013, alongside four other companies, TUPNI, SAPETRO, Petrobras, and CNOOC, contracted the construction of the Subsea Production Systems, SPS, module for the project to FMC Technologies, FMC, later sub-contracted the fabrication and load-out of six manifolds to a fully-indigenous local fabrication company, Aveon Offshore Ltd, a development the GMD said justifiied NNPC’s commitment to promoting local capacity in the nation’s Oil and Gas Industry.
“By getting involved in this laudable feat, NNPC has not only demonstrated the growing efficacy of the Nigerian Content Act, it has also reaffirmed the Corporation’s commitment to local content development,” Dr. Baru stated.
“We are strongly committed to the successful implementation of all provisions of this Act to improve and accelerate local capacity development in all NNPC’s projects”.
“There will be room for more of these opportunities in the nearest future as we are fully committed and determined to achieving sustainable domestication of a large percentage of the other modules on the Egina project. We will continue to touch your lives in many more positive ways,” he assured.
He reiterated that the construction of the SPS module for Egina project has placed the oil industry ahead in the quest to promote “Made in Nigeria Goods and Services”, as championed by the Federal Government.
The Egina project which gulped over $30m worth of investments, was delivered ahead of schedule with zero Loss Time Injury (LTI) in about 5.5 million man-hours.
It is the first Deepwater project after the enactment of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Content Development, NOGID Act of 2010.
Adjudged the first of its kind in Nigeria, each of the 6-slots Egina production manifolds has a lifespan of 25 years subsea. While the load-out of the first set of three manifolds was carried out in July 2017, the load-out of the second and final set of three manifolds was done on Tuesday, September 19.