Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — The Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB, Engr. Felix Omatsola Ogbe, has assured indigenous oil and gas service companies of continued support to sustain the impressive growth in local content and to boost their production operations.
Speaking during a facility tour of the 10,000-square-metre fabrication yard of Lee Engineering and Construction Company Limited, Warri, Delta State, Ogbe said that he was highly impressed with facilities and competencies acquired in the pursuit of local content development.
He lauded Lee Engineering on its 34 years of active engagement in engineering, construction, operations, and maintenance services with major oil and gas industry players, such as NNPC Ltd, Shell Petroleum Development Company, Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company SNEPCO, Chevron Nigeria Limited, ExxonMobil, and TotalEnergies Limited, among others, as clients.
The NCDMB boss noted with pleasure 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, applauded the assortment of top-grade engineering equipment and industrial machinery parts in the expansive operational base of the company.
“I will collaborate with your company and ensure that jobs you can do will come here. We are here as enablers to business and I will work with any company that can increase production in the country.”
He 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.
Earlier, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lee Engineering and Construction Company, Dr. Leemon Ikpea, thanked the Executive Secretary and his entourage for the facility visit.
Ikpea said the company, whose corporate headquarters was 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.
Recalling the state of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria in the early 1990s, he noted that the dominance of foreign companies and production inputs, and the attendant massive capital flight, was exceedingly disturbing and ruinous to the Nigerian 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 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 drew attention to the company’s feats in industrial equipment manufacturing and over 350 projects executed by Lee Engineering including the Utorogu Gas Plant, 150,000bpd Odidi Flow Station, and a workforce of 3,500 Nigerians.
“This is a sign that local content is working. Thank you NCDMB for living up to your mandate as an enabler of businesses,” Ikpea said.
