Kunle Kalejaye 24 December 2014, Sweetcrude, Lagos – Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB, Engr. Ernest Nwapa, says the Federal Government’s local content policy has progressed beyond reversal.
The implication of this, according to Nwapa, is that indigenous players in the oil and gas industry must rise to the challenge of driving the industry.
At the annual business dinner and award by the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria, PETAN, he urged the association and other sister groups in the industry to assume more responsibility at critical moments to ensure the survival of the Nigerian petroleum industry.
He added that the only way out of the current tight oil price curve was for the different business interests in the industry to foster unity in tackling a common problem.
“Collaboration among local and international players in the industry is what is required to sustain Nigeria content development,” Engr. Nwapa declared as he pointed out that the indigenous players in the oil and gas industry have escaped the average psychological limits in the country.
Sressing that the mindset of the industry has developed above the Nigerian psychological template, he stated that recent advances and milestones recorded by local players indicated that investors have started advancing into new frontiers driven by strong belief in local capacity to deliver on tough assignments in challenging terrains.
He also pointed out that the capacity and efficiency so far demonstrated by indigenous oil companies that acquired divested assets have addressed the concern about the sustainability of the government’s local content policy, adding that wisdom of President Goodluck Jonathan in enacting the policy into law has been robustly justified.
He lamented that the decades wasted in depending on the multinational joint venture operators to groom the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation for exploration and production operations proved futile, stressing that no group of players would realise Nigeria’s national aspirations in the industry better than indigenous players.
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