Column

Skill Gap And Nation Building

Published

4 years ago

December 8, 2021

A recent exposition by the Executive Director of National Board of Technical Education in Nigeria Professor Bitrus Bagagi on skill Gap in all se3ctors of the economy is revealing.
The issue of skill gap is traceable to the yawning gap in our educational system between paper qualification and capacity development in skills that are relevant to industry and general services in Nigeria.
According to professor Bitrus Bagegi in every five university graduates, there should be five technologists and in every five technologist there should be five technicians.
However, this reality has eluded Nigeria because of poor educational planning and implementation.
Nigerian educational system is still suffering from the hangover of British colonial Educational system which emphasised two basic skills of Literacy and Numeracy.
The colonial masters brought this skill regime to provide the needed manpower for their colonial administration. They wanted interpreters, court clerks, Clergy and security personnel to run their administration. These skills served their purpose of that time and the early days of our independence. However it does appear as if curriculum developers in the Nigeria Educational System are still struggling to get away with this philosophy of immediate and non- sustainable manpower needs.
When the six-three-three-four system of education in Nigeria was introduced, there was a strong vocational component to remove the system from this colonial need.
Old habits they say are difficult to die. Efforts at building vocational education centres to remove the skill gap at the lower rungs of technological development did not seem to make deep and sustainable impact in bridging skill gaps. Polytechnic Education also was created to grow middle level manpower to groom technologists that will provide industrial revolution. Sadly, polytechnics created none technological
Departments to satisfy other needs which universities and Colleges of Education should address. The Universities of Technology became the vogue in the nineteen . eighties with the establishment of Rivers State University of Science Technology in Port Harcourt. The Federal Government of Nigeria glorified it by establishing several Universities of Technology to enthrone a technological revolution. The idea in all these is to have a large army of Artisans, Technicians, Technologists and Certified Engineers.
Education Departments created vocational Department to produce teachers of these skills in technical colleges and vocational centers. Have these efforts made any sustainable and effective impact in addressing skills gap at all levels of technological enterprises.
It is sad to note that the current railway development project in Nigeria has exposed serious skill gap among the I Nigerian work force. Records indicate that five thousand welders are needed in the current construction of Rail tracks and maintenance in Nigeria but the numbers that were documented were only in their hundreds.
This is just a tip of the ice bag in the gap that exists in skill acquisition in the Nigeria conomy. Citizens of Togo and other West African Countries cross the border to Nigeria to do simple jobs of pipe fitters, plumbers and other building craftsmen.
In a country of over 180 million people, it is difficult to find good craftsmen to do simple electrical wiring in a house and good automobile craftsmen are hard to find.
Most times we find half baked technicians who end up creating more problems. Poor electrical wiring installations have often led to fire out breaks and electrocution. Car engines are easily damaged these days because of Incompetent Auto mechanics.
The problem emanates from poor training culture and get rich quick mentality. Some of these skills which are picked on the road sides can be better managed in well structured vocational training centers with the right curriculum and philosophy.
According to C. S. Lewis “Education without value is useful only to make man a more clever devil”.
Have we asked ourselves why buildings are collapsing? Lack of adequate skill is responsible. The Nigeria Polytechnics and Engineering as well as Environmental science Departments have produced more quacks than men and women with requisite skills, the rest are paper tigers. This is why there is serious reliance on
foreign skill holders in almost all the high tech enterprises in Nigeria.
Competent and well groomed craftsmen, technicians, technologies are very few.
Many quacks roam the streets with their tools of incompetence. Sadly, it is not their fault; it is a problem that starts from a flawed educational Environment. Nigeria is a
; mono cultural economy that relies so much on oil but possesses little skill value in the industry.
Foreign investors still control the bulk of man power needs. The hope lies in restructuring our educational system to produce balanced skill driven system. We must get rid of producing graduates with skills and craftsmen who are empty in capacity.

By: Bon Woke

Column

Renewable Energy Faces Looming Workforce Crisis

Published

3 days ago

August 18, 2025

The Tide

Despite a discouraging political climate and unprecedented uncertainty in the United States clean energy sector, low costs of wind and solar energy continue to drive growth of the domestic clean energy sector.

However, while market forces continue to support the expansion of renewable energy capacity, the sector faces critical challenges extending beyond the antagonism of the Trump administration.

The continued growth of solar and wind power risks being hampered by several mitigating factors, including (but not limited to) intensifying competition over increasingly scarce suitable land plots, stressed and volatile global supply chains, lengthy and unpredictable development processes, Complex and overlapping permitting processes, and a critical talent gap.

The renewable energy labor shortage has been years in the making, but is no less closer to resolution. The issue spans both white collar and blue collar positions, and threatens to kneecap progress in the booming sector.

Between the years of 2011 and 2030, it is expected that global levels of installed wind and solar capacity will quadruple. Analysis from McKinsey & Company concludes that “this huge surge in new wind and solar installations will be almost impossible to staff with qualified development and construction employees as well as operations and maintenance workers.

“It’s unclear where these employees will come from in the future,” the McKinsey report goes on to say.

He continued that “There are too few people with specialized and relevant expertise and experience, and too many of them are departing for other companies or other industries.”

The solar and wind industries are suffering from a lack of awareness of career paths and opportunities, despite their well-established presence in domestic markets.

Emergent clean energies face an even steeper uphill battle. Geothermal energy, for example, is poised for explosive growth as one of vanishingly few carbon-free energy solutions with broad bipartisan support, but faces a severe talent gap and punishingly low levels of awareness in potential talent pools.

But while the outlook is discouraging, industry insiders argue that it’s too soon to sound the alarms. In fact, a recent report from Utility Drive contends that “solutions to the energy talent gap are hiding in plain sight.”

The article breaks down those solutions into four concrete approaches: building partnerships with educators, formulating Registered Apprenticeship pathways, updating credential requirements to reflect real-world needs, and rethinking stale recruitment strategies.

Targeting strategic alliances with educational institutions is a crucial strategy for creating a skilled workforce, particularly in emerging sectors like geothermal energy.

Businesses can, for example, partner with and sponsor programs at community colleges, creating a pipeline for the next generation of skilled workers. Apprenticeships serve a similar purpose, encouraging hands-on learning outside of the classroom. Such apprenticeships can apply to white collar positions as well as blue collar roles.

“If we can figure out a way to educate the younger generation that you can actually have a career that you can be proud of and help solve a problem the world is facing, but also work in the extractive industry, I think that could go a long way,” said Jeanine Vany, executive vice president of corporate affairs for Canadian geothermal firm Eavor, speaking about the geothermal energy talent gap.

These approaches won’t solve the talent gap overnight – especially as political developments may discourage would-be jobseekers from placing their bets on a career in the renewables sector. But they will go a long way toward mitigating the issue.

“The clean energy transition depends on a workforce that can sustain it,” reports Utility Drive. “To meet the hiring challenges, employers will benefit from looking beyond the next position to fill and working toward a strategic, industry-wide vision for attracting talent.”

By: Haley Zaremba

Column

Why Oil Prices Could See Significant Upside Shift

Published

3 weeks ago

July 28, 2025

The Tide

The 9th OPEC International Seminar was held in Vienna recently, wherein participants discussed energy security, investment, climate change, and energy poverty, with a particular emphasis on balancing these competing priorities.

According to commodity analysts at Standard Chartered, the summit, titled “Charting Pathways Together: The Future of Global Energy”, featured significantly greater engagement from international oil companies and consuming country governments, with discussions converging on a more inclusive shared agenda rather than non-intersecting approaches seen in previous years.

However, StanChart reported there was a clear mismatch between what energy producers vs. market analysts think about spare production capacity.

Unlike Wall Street analysts, who frequently talk about spare capacity of 5-6 million barrels per day (mb/d), speakers from several sectors of the industry noted that spare capacity is both limited and very geographically concentrated.

StanChart believes this erroneous assumption about spare capacity has been a big drag on oil prices, and the implications for the whole forward curve of oil prices could be potentially profound once traders realize that roughly two-thirds of the capacity they thought was available on demand does not actually exist.

This makes the analysts bullish about the general shape of their forecast 2026 price trajectory (Figure 32), i.e., a set of significant upward shifts as opposed to the flat trajectory seen in the market curve and in analyst consensus.

In other words, oil prices could have as much as $15/barrel upside from current levels.

StanChart is not the only oil bull here. Goldman Sachs recently hiked its oil price forecast for H2 2025, saying the market is increasingly shifting its focus from recession fears to potential supply disruptions, low spare capacity, lower oil inventories, especially among OECD countries and production constraints by Russia.

GS has increased its Brent forecast by $5/bbl to $66/bbl, and by $6 for WTI crude to $63/bbl, slightly lower than current levels of $68.34/bbl and 66.24/bbl for Brent and WTI crude, respectively.

However, the Wall Street bank has maintained its 2026 price forecast at $56/bbl for Brent and $52 for WTI, due to “an offset between a boost from higher long-dated prices and a hit from a wider 1.7M bbl/day surplus.’’ Previously, GS had forecast a 1.5M bbl/day surplus for the coming year.

Further, Goldman sees a stronger oil price rebound beyond 2026 due to reduced spare capacity.

EU natural gas inventories have climbed at faster-than-average clip in recent times. According to Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) data, Europe’s gas inventories stood at 73.10 billion cubic metres (bcm) on 13 July, good for a 2.31 bcm w/w increase.

Still, the injection rate is not enough to completely fill the continent’s gas stores, with the current clip on track to take inventories to about 97.9 bcm, or 84.3% of storage capacity, at the end of the injection season.

Europe’s gas demand remains fairly lacklustre despite extremely high temperatures across much of the continent in recent weeks.

According to estimates by StanChart, EU gas demand for the first 14 days of July averaged 583 million cubic meters/day, nearly 3% lower from a year ago but a 10% improvement from the June lows.

However, StanChart is bullish on natural gas prices, saying the market is likely underestimating the likelihood of more Russian gas being taken off the markets.

Back in April, U.S. senators Lindsey Graham (Republican) and Richard Blumenthal (Democrat), introduced “Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025”, with the legislation enjoying broad bipartisan support (85 co-sponsors in the Senate out of 100 senators).

In a joint statement on 14 July, the two senators noted that President Trump’s decision to implement 100% secondary tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil and gas if a peace agreement is not reached within 50 days but pledged that they will continue to work on “bipartisan Russia sanctions legislation that would implement up to 500 percent tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil and gas”.

StanChart has predicted that the Trump administration is unlikely to take actions that risk driving oil prices higher. However, Russian gas remains in the crosshairs, with U.S. LNG likely to see a surge in demand if Russian gas exports are curtailed.

StanChart estimates that the EU’s net imports of Russian pipeline gas averaged 79.8 million cubic metres per day (mcm/d) in the first 14 days of July, with all non-transit flows into the EU coming into Bulgaria through the Turkstream pipeline, with Hungary and Slovakia also receiving Turkstream gas.

There was also a flow of about 65 mcm/d of Russian LNG in the first half of July, with Russia providing 18.6% of the EU’s net imports. StanChart has predicted that we could see a strong rally in natural gas prices if Washington slaps Moscow with fresh gas sanctions.

By: Alex Kimani

Column

Nuclear Stocks Soar on Stargate AI Infrastructure Announcement

Published

7 months ago

January 28, 2025

The Tide

Over the past couple of years, the nuclear energy sector has enjoyed a renaissance in the U.S. and many western countries, thanks to the global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine, high power demand and nuclear’s status as a low-carbon energy source.

Uranium demand has soared, thanks to a series of policy “U-turns” with governments from Japan to Germany revising plans to phase out nuclear power.

Uranium spot prices hit an all-time high of $81.32 per pound in February, double the level 12 months prior.

According to the World Nuclear Association, demand from reactors is expected to climb 28% by 2030, and nearly double by 2040. Not surprisingly, the sector’s popular benchmark, VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NYSEARCA:NLR), recently hit an all-time high.

However, last month, nuclear energy stocks started pulling back sharply, mostly because the sector was seriously overheating. One of the biggest losers was NuScale Power Corp. (NYSE:SMR), with the stock crashing nearly 30% in a matter of weeks.

The selloff kicked off after the company disclosed an agreement with several brokerage firms in which the company may offer and sell from time to time as much as $200M in common stock.

NuScale says proceeds from the sale will be used for general corporate purposes, including operating expenses, capital expenditures, R&D costs and working capital. NuScale is a developer of modular light water reactor nuclear power plants.

Small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) are advanced nuclear reactors with power capacities that range from 50-300 MW(e) per unit, compared to 700+ MW(e) per unit for traditional nuclear power reactors.

Thankfully, nuclear stocks are on fire again after President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a $500 billion joint venture with Oracle Corp. (NYSE:ORCL), OpenAI, and SoftBank (OTCPK:SFTBY) to build AI infrastructure in the U.S.

The companies have pledged to commit $100 billion to start, and as much as $500 billion over the next four years toward the initiative, with Trump calling it “largest AI infrastructure project in history”.

OpenAI, ChatGPT maker, said it expects the project, called Stargate, to help support American leadership in AI, and that it could create “hundreds of thousands” of jobs in the U.S. Other tech giants including Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)) and Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARM) are also expected to be technology partners in the project.

NuScale stock has rocketed 1,175% over the past 12 months; Oklo Inc. (NYSE:OKLO), which is backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has surged 299%, Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST) has soared 386% while Centrus Energy (NYSE:LEU) has jumped 73% over the timeframe.

Meanwhile, shares of Nano Nuclear Energy (NASDAQ:NNE) have jumped 1,017% since its May 2024 IPO. The shares made further gains on Thursday after the company was awarded patents related to its designs for a modular transportable nuclear generator.

Nano Nuclear is developing ZEUS, a solid core battery reactor, and ODIN, a low-pressure salt coolant reactor.

Yet another big mover is Baltimore, Maryland-based Constellation Energy Corporation (NASDAQ:CEG), a power utility that sells natural gas, energy-related products, and sustainable solutions.

CEG shares have soared 200% over the past 52 weeks. The company owns approximately 33,094 megawatts of generating capacity consisting of nuclear, wind, solar, natural gas, and hydroelectric assets.

The big nuclear rally kicked off last year after NuScale signed an agreement with Standard Power to supply the data center provider with SMRs. Standard Power–a developer of modular data centers–will use NuScale Power’s power solutions at two separate sites, where up to 12 SMRs (at each site) would be used to provide power for new data centers.

Suddenly, the market took note of SMRs as a viable solution for data centers struggling to keep up with surging power demands by artificial intelligence (AI) computing.

The International Energy Agency has projected that global data center electricity consumption will jump from 460 terawatt-hours in 2022 to 1,000 terawatt-hours in 2026.

The long-term outlook for the nuclear sector remains bullish, with nuclear power expected to meet surging AI demand and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

According to Goldman Sachs, escalating electricity needs from running AI data centers will generate downstream investment opportunities that will benefit utilities, renewable energy generation, and industrial sectors.

The investment bank has forecast that data center power demand will grow at 15% compound annual growth rate from 2023-2030, with data centers consuming 8% of total U.S. electricity output at the end of the forecast period compared to ~3% currently.

Analysts estimate that ~47 GW of additional power generation capacity will be required to meet the growth in U.S. data center power demand by 2030.

Last year, a total of 34 countries, including the U.S., pledged to increasingly deploy nuclear power to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) report Electricity 2024, nuclear power generation is forecast to reach an all-time high globally in 2025, exceeding the previous record set in 2021 as new reactors begin commercial operations in multiple markets, including China, India, South Korea, and Europe; output from France climbs and several plants in Japan are restarted.

Kimani writes for Oilprice.com