Business
NCDMB, APPO Recommits To African Local Content Development
The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), and the African Petroleum Producers’ Organisation (APPO) have recommitted their partnership towards establishing African centres of excellence in local content development.
The Tide gathered that both organisations were also set to encourage African petroleum producing countries to develop specialised capacities in core oil and gas services, and patronise one another in their respective areas of expertise.
This came to the fore, Thursday, when the Secretary-General of APPO, Dr. Omar Farouk Ibrahim, visited the Executive Secretary of the NCDMB, Engr. Felix Omatsola Ogbe, at the agency’s liaison office in Abuja.
Information made available to newsmen by the Department of Corporate Communications and Zonal Coordination of the NCDMB quoted the APPO scribe as having reiterated his organisation’s proposal to partner NCDMB towards establishing centres of excellence in key aspects of the oil and gas industry.
Dr. Ibrahim said the NCDMB’s Oil and Gas parks would serve as centres of excellence, and accommodate original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), and investors from other African Oil Producing countries.
“Similar centres would be established in other African countries. Some firms had approached APPO to indicate interest to invest in Nigerian oil and gas sector, particularly in the oil and gas parks.
“It’s imperative for African oil producing countries to collaborate closely, since none of them had sufficient technical and financial capacity to operate independently. Close collaboration will actualise the noble objectives of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA)”, the APPO Scribe said.
Using Nigeria’s decades of experience in the oil and gas industry as reference point, Ibrahim charged NCDMB to use its capacity building initiatives and facilities to train technicians and personnel who can work in key areas of the Oil and Gas industry across Africa.
He also invited the NCDMB to partner and participate in the 4th African Local Content Roundtable (ALCR), planned to hold in Congo, and expected to be hosted by the Ministry of Hydrocarbons of the Republic of Congo.
According to him, there is the need for the Board to reach out more to African Oil producers, sharing its success stories with those countries that looked up to Nigeria for guidance in local content, Oil and Gas operations.
APPO, he said, was determined to change the perception that African Oil producing countries would continue to rely on foreign nations and external institutions to harness their petroleum resources.
“Africa Oil producers must accelerate steps in innovating technology and providing the funding needed for the sector’s operations, one of the steps being the establishment of the African Energy Bank.
“I commend the NCDMB for achieving consistent Nigerian content development in the past 14 years, underpinned by a robust framework, backed with strong political will.
“Most African nations lack such structures, and subsumed their local content policies and agencies under their petroleum ministry or the national oil company”, he said.
In his remarks, the NCDMB’S Scribe reeled out the Board’s strategic support to other African petroleum nations, including the Memorandum of Agreement (MoU) on collaboration it signed with the Petroleum Commission, Ghana, in 2024, and with the Senegalese’s National Local Content Monitoring Committee in 2023.
Other strategic support initiatives of the Board, according to the Board’s scribe, were capacity building workshops it organised for other African Oil producing countries.
“The Board is equally projecting and showcasing the capacities of established Nigerian Oil and Gas service companies to other African nations. We’re opening new vista of opportunities for them in those markets”, Ogbe said.
He underlined the need for Nigerian service companies to partner local companies whenever they enter other African countries, and to obey local laws, expressing delight over the proposal to designate the Oil and Gas parks as African centres of excellence, and affirmed that the parks would be completed and commissioned this year, 2025.
“The NCDMB has started inviting manufacturers and other intending investors to apply and take up shop floors in the parks. And so I want to extend our invitation to OEMs and other investors from across Africa and beyond to invest in the Oil and Gas parks. Nigerian content emphasises domiciliation and domestication of capacities, and not indigenisation.
“I thank you, APPO Secretary-General for your meritorious service to the African energy industry which has culminated in the establishment the African Energy Bank with headquarters in Abuja, the Nigerian capital city. Secretary-General, continue serving the African Oil and Gas industry even after the expiration your tenure at APPO”, Ogbe added.
Ariwera Ibibo-Howells, Yenagoa