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Time To Implement Local Content Act 2010

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14 years ago

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A visit to Nigeria airports, especially the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa shows an influx of so-called foreign experts into the country almost on daily basis. When asked who they are and where they are going, the answer is always, “they are expatriates coming for one oil company or another. With this observation, one is poised to ask whether the oil companies in the country are actually working in consonance with the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act, 2010.

President Goodluck Jonathan in September 2010 inaugurated the Governing Council of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) during which he charged the board to ensure that its activities impacted on the oil and gas sector. He said the initiative must count on indigenous capacity development in the oil and gas industry. With the inauguration, the NCDMB was fully equipped to commence operations to meet the expectation of Nigerians in the gradual but sustainable implementation of the Nigerian Content Act.

The Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act, 2010 aims to provide for the development of Nigerian content in the Nigerian oil and gas industry, Nigerian content plan, supervision, coordination, monitoring and implementation of Nigerian content and for related matters. Enacted by the National Assembly of Nigeria, the Act, not withstanding anything to the contrary contained in the Petroleum Act, which shall apply to all matters pertaining to Nigerian content in respect of all operations or transactions, carried out in or connected with the Nigerian oil and gas industry.

And among other matters, all regulatory authorities, operators, contractors, subcontractors, alliance partners and other entities involved in any project, operation, activity or transaction in the Nigerian oil and gas industry shall consider Nigeria content as an important element of their overall project development and management philosophy for project execution.

The Executive Secretary of the NCDMB, Mr Ernest Nwapa on Thursday at the 2012 Nigerian Oil and Gas (NOG) conference in Abuja explained that the implementation of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGIC) Act was geared to bring Nigerian jobs back home. Mr Nwapa said the board would ensure that all technology required to develop the local content was deployed to the country to create greater opportunities for Nigerians, pointing out that the emphasis of the Federal Government with the implementation of the Act was not only to retain the bulk of the annual oil and gas industry spend in the country, but ultimately to create employment for millions of Nigerians on the back of oil and gas industry operations.

He noted that most countries around the world were currently working towards bringing back jobs for their nationals in the wake of the global economic crisis and urged all stakeholders to support this agenda of the Federal Government. According to Nwapa, keeping the cost of production reasonable and meeting work schedules are critical to national revenue.

With the caliber of members of the Governing Council of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board head by the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, one would have thought that the Act should have by now been strictly enforced for compliance by oil and gas companies in the country. The Act if properly enforced will propel Nigeria into becoming one of the world’s industrialised economies in the next decade.

Nigeria needs to urgently address the issue of local capacity in the oil and gas industry so as to take advantage of expected investments and guard against the repeat of past mistakes where most goods and services used in the industry were imported, while facilities that were built suffered from inadequate after sales service support. The preference for importing almost all the goods and services used by the industry from abroad is steadily eliminating opportunities to develop human and infrastructural capacity, thereby impoverishing our people and stultifying national economic development.

We must ensure that our implementation efforts do not fail and we must be consistent and unwavering in order to transform our industry from an importer of goods and services to an industry that can source its key imputs from local resources. The oil and gas industry can generate manufacturing activities to support its operations and employment and domicile significant proportions of its derivatives as well as trap commensurate revenue in Nigeria to develop the fabrication yards, shipyards and manufacturing plants to industrialise our economy.

Major cities like Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kano, Jos, to mention just a few, like the proverbial honeybee, easily attract prospective foreigners into the country so must and many foreign experts who appear to have literarily struck gold in the country capitalise on the quest of industries for them to simply hijack available positions meant for indigenes. These industries, particularly the oil multinationals refuse to know that Nigerians also have the right skills that are high on demand.

An immigration official who did not want his name on print because he had no authority to speak on the issue, revealed to journalists that the office receives hundreds of applications from prospective foreigners seeking temporary permits in the country on daily basis. His words: “In recent time, we have been receiving a deluge of applications form would-be expatriates seeking work permits. What we do when such applications come, under the circumstance, is to do thorough background checks and treat each ease on its merit”.

Investigations have revealed that foreigners appear to dominate key sectors of the country’s economy such as oil and gas, energy and power, construction, telecommunications, real estate, banking and finance, among others. The Vice Chairman, Broron Group of Companies, Mr Henry Ojogho, a conglomerate with interest in oil and gas, telecommunications, energy and power, in an interview disclosed that foreigners still dominate most businesses in the country today. Specifically citing the oil and gas industry, ojogho said that the country has the right local experts for most of these jobs.

He was, however, quick to admit that there are lots of handicaps militating against the capacity of local experts to deliver on the job when compared to their peers abroad. “In Nigeria, I can tell you in all honesty that we have expertise that can compete favourably with their counterparts abroad but they are hamstrung by the lack of capacity. What do you make of a professional involved in seizure engineering who has no equipment to do these jobs?, he stressed.

The President of the Association of consulting Architect of Nigeria Architect Roti Delano,in another interview decried what he described as the “invasion of foreign architecture” in the country. He said: “We have had other foreign architects working in the country but the problem we are having now is the incursion of foreign architects practicing illegally in Nigeria. Some clients engage these people in ignorance and we know of clients, who when this is drawn to their attention, reverse the situation”.

Delano continued: “It is not only the clients that are encouraging foreign people coming to practice illegally in Nigeria, we have instances where the Federal Government engages foreign architects to work illegally in Nigeria. Part of the problems we are going through now is trying to make our clients realise that the Nigerian architects”. He recalled that when President Olusegun Obasanjo was Head of the Military Government in the 1970s and the country was building the second generation universities at the time, all the projects went to Nigerian artchitects provided they showed they have the technical expertise.

The cost of engaging a local architect or expert in any field is a fraction of what you pay the foreign person. Several studies have shown that in about 37 countries, Nigerian professionals earn the least pay while the Federal Government pays a lot of money for consultancy services for those coming from abroad. The government flies them in an pays them heavily for what other Nigerians here can do in a lesser time than the foreigner can achieve. The government must look into this.

Expenditure in the industrial sector of the country must transcend returns in terms of revenue and also translate to local capacity, increased technological growth, jobs for Nigerians, assets and develop critical facilities and infrastructure to support performance of work scopes in Nigeria.

It is now necessary for the Governing Council of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring  Board to develop partnership between local and international companies, government, and gas companies and the private sector of the economy and create linkage with all sectors of the economy, local banks and global financing institutions to create the enabling environment for local capacity building. There must be developments in our supply chain management, the integration of government programmes such as Small and Medium Enterprises, training by the Petroleum Training and Development Fund (PTDF), Industrial Training Fund (ITF), National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP), to build local capabilities across board and transfer the technological experience inherent in the oil and gas industry to other sectors like transportation, construction, telecommunications, power, defence, maritime among others.

The NCDMB should create access to funds by leveraging the reforms in the banking sector to design interventions that support local companies with low interests and long-term loans. The board should also sensitise indigenes of oil producing communities on government’s genuine intentions to empower their youths, protect the environment, secure lives and property and ensure their participation in economic activities to maintain the tranquil environment required to support productive industry activities.

 

Shedie Okpara

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Oil & Energy

Global Coal Consumption Hits Record Even As Coal Power Declines

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2 weeks ago

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August 3, 2026

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Global coal consumption reached another record in 2025, seemingly contradicting years of discussion about phasing out the world’s most carbon-intensive fossil fuel.
But the headline number does not tell the whole story.
The latest Statistical Review of World Energy shows that global coal consumption rose to 166.0 exajoules last year. That represented an increase of 0.7% from 2024.
At the same time, global electricity generation from coal declined. Coal-fired power production fell 0.3% to 10,511 terawatt-hours.
Those two trends are not mutually exclusive. Coal is used not only to generate electricity, but also in steelmaking, cement production, and other industrial processes. The divergence also reflects a changing geographic picture in which coal is declining across much of the developed world while remaining deeply embedded in Asia’s industrial economy.
A Record With Important Qualifications
Coal consumption reached a record in absolute terms, but it did not keep pace with overall energy demand.
Total global energy supply increased from 592.2 exajoules in 2024 to 600.3 exajoules in 2025, an increase of about 1.4%. Coal grew more slowly, so its share of the global energy mix slipped from 27.9% to 27.7%. Thus, despite the global record in coal consumption, coal lost a small amount of market share.
This pattern appears frequently during energy transitions. A fuel can continue growing in absolute terms even as faster-growing alternatives reduce its share of the total. With global energy demand still rising, losing market share does not necessarily mean declining consumption.
Renewable energy provides a relevant comparison. Renewable energy supply increased by nearly 10% in 2025, far outpacing coal. But the world’s appetite for energy was large enough to accommodate growth in renewables and another record for coal at the same time.
Coal Is Increasingly an Asian Fuel
The most striking feature of the coal market is its geographic concentration.
Asia Pacific consumed 138.1 exajoules of coal in 2025, accounting for 83.2% of the global total. China alone consumed 92.2 exajoules, or 55.6% of all the coal used in the world.
India contributed another 23.1 exajoules, representing 13.9% of global consumption. Together, China and India accounted for almost 70% of the world’s coal use. Add Indonesia, and the three countries consumed nearly 73% of the total.
This is why broad statements about a global coal phaseout can be misleading. Coal may be steadily retreating in Europe and North America, but its future is increasingly being determined in Asia.
Non-OECD countries accounted for 85.2% of global coal consumption in 2025. Their coal use has grown at an average annual rate of 1.9% over the past decade. OECD consumption, by contrast, has declined at an annual rate of 4.8%.
Europe consumed just 4.4% of the world’s coal last year. The European Union’s share was only 2.8%, following another 3.2% decline in consumption.
The global total therefore combines two very different stories. One is a long-term retreat from coal across much of the developed world. The other is coal’s continued importance to the large and growing economies of Asia.
One surprise in the 2025 data is that coal-fired electricity generation declined even as total coal consumption increased.
China generated 5,756 terawatt-hours of electricity from coal, down 1.1% from 2024. India’s coal generation fell 3.0% to 1,464 terawatt-hours. Since those two countries produce nearly 69% of the world’s coal-fired electricity, relatively small percentage declines can have a large effect on the global total.
Coal generation across Asia Pacific declined 1.2%, while Europe posted another 3.4% decrease. The European Union’s coal generation fell 3.6% and accounted for only 2.6% of the global total.
The divergence between consumption and power generation indicates that coal demand outside the electric power sector helped support the record. Coal consumption statistics include industrial uses that are not captured by electricity-generation totals. Changes in plant efficiency, coal quality, inventories, and measurement can also prevent the two series from moving in perfect alignment.
Whatever the precise combination, the result is notable. The world consumed a record amount of coal while producing less electricity from it.
The United States broke sharply with the broader developed-world trend in 2025.
U.S. coal consumption rose 10.4% to 8.7 exajoules. Coal-fired electricity generation jumped 13.1% to 804 terawatt-hours, while domestic coal production increased 4.4%.
In absolute terms, the increase in U.S. coal consumption was larger than the net increase for the entire world. U.S. consumption rose by about 0.8 exajoules, while the global total increased by roughly 0.7 exajoules. Declines in several other countries offset part of the American increase.
Still, this should not be mistaken for a return to coal’s former dominance in the United States.
U.S. coal consumption remains about 62% below its 2005 peak. Coal-fired generation is approximately 63% below its 2007 high, and production is about 54% below its 1998 peak.
The 2025 increase was substantial, but it occurred within a long-term structural decline. The United States still accounted for just 5.3% of global coal consumption and 7.7% of global coal-fired generation.
Global coal production remained near record levels at 180.8 exajoules, but it was essentially flat in 2025.
China increased production by 1.7% and supplied 52.4% of the world total. Its coal consumption was nearly unchanged, but its imports fell 10.1%. The combination suggests that increased domestic production displaced a meaningful amount of imported coal.
That shift helped push global coal trade down 3.1% to 35.3 exajoules. Indonesia, the world’s largest exporter, saw exports fall 7.4%. U.S. exports declined 11.5%, while Colombian exports plunged 21.3%.
Thus, record global consumption did not translate into record international trade. Much of the world’s coal is produced and consumed within the same countries, especially China and India.
The 2025 data support neither the claim that coal is disappearing nor the claim that the energy transition has stopped.
Coal use reached a record, but its share of global energy declined. Coal-fired electricity generation fell, but industrial and other uses kept total consumption elevated. Coal rebounded sharply in the United States but remained far below its historical peak. Europe continued to move away from coal, while Asia accounted for more than four-fifths of global demand.
The coal market is no longer one unified global story. It is a widening divide between countries that are steadily reducing their dependence on coal and countries where it remains central to electricity, industry, and economic development.
That divide is likely to continue defining the coal market for many years.
By Robert Rapier
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Oil & Energy

FG To Stop Electricity Subsidy Payments From 2027

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2 weeks ago

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August 3, 2026

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The Federal Government has announced plans to end electricity subsidy payments from 2027 as part of efforts to tackle mounting liabilities in the power sector.
 Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, disclosed this at a media interactive session , in Abuja, at the weekend.
Tegbe said  the Federal Government would phase out subsidies beginning from 2027, assuring Nigerians  the policy would not deprive citizens of the benefits currently enjoyed under the subsidy regime.
According to him, the proposed removal forms part of broader reforms aimed at ensuring the long-term sustainability of the electricity sector while tackling the financial challenges confronting the industry.
Tegbe explained that despite the planned subsidy withdrawal, there are no immediate plans to increase electricity tariffs, reassuring consumers that the government is not considering a tariff hike in the short term.
“The phase-out of electricity subsidies will begin from 2027. However, there are no immediate plans to increase electricity tariffs. Our goal is to build a commercially viable power sector while protecting vulnerable consumers.
“The Power Consumer Assistance Fund will play a critical role in cushioning the impact on vulnerable consumers as we implement these reforms,” the minister stated.
He pointed out that  implementation timeline and consumer protection measures would be unveiled as the reform process progresses, emphasizing that Nigeria’s electricity subsidy has remained a major fiscal burden.
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Firm unveils New Products For Oil Facilities 

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2 weeks ago

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August 3, 2026

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An oil servicing firm, Solewant Group, has unveiled protective coatings and paints to secure oil facilities.
The products, manufactured at its new plant, sited in Alode Eleme, Rivers State, comprise of paints and coating that aid durability of oil facilities.
The products included the Solguard Architectural Coatings range comprising emulsion, matt and silk paints; Solguard Industrial Protective Coatings, featuring red oxide metal primer and alkyd gloss enamel; Solguard Heavy-Duty Protective Systems, including zinc-rich epoxy primer, high-build epoxy coat and acrylic polyurethane; and the flagship Novaguard Premium Specialty Coatings, made up of 100 per cent solid epoxy, polyurethane and polyurea systems for heavy industrial applications.
Unveiling the paints, at the weekend, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources(Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, described the products as innovative and pledged  the federal government’s support  to indigenous companies.
Lokpobiri described Solewant’s products as milestone in Nigeria’s industrialisation drive and local content development.
“This is clear evidence of the growth, which shows that local service providers in Nigeria have developed over the past 15 years.
“I’m very happy today that I have the privilege to witness this plant that will not just service Nigeria, but will service the entire African continent”, the minister said.
Lokpobiri praised Solewant’s expansion into Namibia, saying it marked the beginning of broader opportunities for Nigerian companies across Africa’s energy sector.
“We are fully committed to supporting companies like Solewant Group. That is the only way we can grow this industry.
“The solution to Nigeria’s energy problem lies with Nigerians. Nobody will come from anywhere to solve our problems in Africa”, he said.
He noted that the company’s new manufacturing capability would help address one of Nigeria’s biggest oil production challenges by providing locally manufactured protective coating solutions for ageing pipelines.
“Our pipes are completely corroded, and we need solutions that Solewant is providing to address that problem. What you have done here is a Nigerian solution to the Nigerian problem”, he said.
Speaking at the occasion, Solewant Group Chief Executive Officer, Solomon Ewanehi, said the investment was driven by the vision of ending Nigeria’s dependence on imported industrial coatings while building globally competitive manufacturing capacity.
In his words, “today we are not just launching the Solewant Coating Manufacturing Plant. We are launching confidence; confidence that Nigeria has the competence, the capacity and the courage to manufacture not just what we consume but also what we can export to compete with international standards.”
Ewanehi explained that the company unveiled 11 enhanced coating products under the Solguard and Novaguard brands, developed and manufactured in Nigeria for the oil and gas, marine, infrastructure and industrial sectors.
“Sixteen years ago, we asked a simple question: Why should Nigeria, a leading oil and gas nation, continue to import the very coatings that protect our critical assets?
“Today, that vision has become steel, concrete, plant and people”, he stated.
According to him, the products were designed to deliver world-class corrosion protection for pipelines, offshore platforms, refineries, storage tanks, bridges, power plants and other critical infrastructure operating in harsh environments.
Also speaking,  Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume, described the project as “a powerful statement of confidence in Nigeria” and applauded Solewant for expanding local manufacturing despite ongoing economic reforms.
Represented by the his Special Adviser on Technical Matters, Prof Bolaji Babatunde, Akume said “your  decision to expand manufacturing capability, develop technology and create value within Nigeria is a commendable example of the kind of private sector leadership that the Federal Government seeks to encourage me”.
Rivers State Governor Siminalayi Fubara, represented by his Chief of Staff, Barr. Sunny Ewuhle, also commended the company for choosing Rivers State as its industrial base.
“We are calling on all local and foreign investors to emulate what Solewant Group has done in Rivers State,” he said, pledging the state’s support for manufacturing, local content development and industrial growth.
Namibia’s High Commissioner to Nigeria, H.E. Walde Natangwe Ndavishiya, described the investment as timely, saying Solewant was well positioned to support Namibia’s emerging oil and gas industry.
“I particularly commend Solewant Group for taking the bold step of establishing a branch office in Namibia. This demonstrates confidence in Namibia and its emerging opportunities,” he stated.
By: Kevin Nengia
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