Indigenous oil firms display expertise in project execution

Nigeria’s indigenous oil and gas firms have taken advantage of the Local Content Policy to showcase their expertise in the execution of projects in the sector.

For example, indigenous oil companies have excelled in the execution of projects in the areas of engineering, fabrication and construction; marine and subsea services; pipeline system, pipeline leak/clamping; operation and maintenance.

According to the Nigerian Content Development and Monitory Board (NCDMB), by utilising local capacity, about $191 billion could be retained, while 300,000 new direct job opportunities are expected in such areas as engineering, sciences, technical services and manufacturing.

Already, Nigerian firms such as Century Energy Services Limited, Marine Platforms Limited and Oilserv Limited and others, have shown expertise in their respective fields.

The increasing indigenous capacity and capability has drastically reduced skills gap that hitherto existed in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, hence the increased advocacy by the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN) and NCDMB for the award of more contracts to Nigerian companies with such competences.

Currently, Oilserv Limited is handling the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC) 67 km x 48 inch gas transmission pipeline system from Delta State to Edo State.

Century Energy Services Limited (CESL) is a frontline oil service firm appointed by Yinka Folawiyo, to contribute to the realisation of Aje as a field with commercial oil reserves, which also brought Lagos State into the league of oil producing states.

The Aje wells are subsea wells tied back to a 40,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd), 18 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscf/d) of gas, and  Floating Production Storage and Offtake (FPSO) vessel – the Front Puffin FPSO.

The company is the operator and maintenance service provider for the Front Puffin FPSO, providing production operations management, facility maintenance and marine support for the Aje field, which is operated by Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum (YFP).

CESL has maintained an age-long working relationship with operators of the Aje field, YEP, to bring the asset from a mere concept, 20 years ago to full commercialisation in May 2016.

CESL’s had also pledged to continue to deliver cost-effective operation and maintenance services on the Aje FPSO, in addition to providing further field development support and production optimisation input on the asset.

“These were trying times but as a company, we will continue to assure business sustainability for continued value creation in the Industry.”

Some companies like us brought creativity to play and this kept them going. The risks faced, with grave implications on revenue base, capacity to employ and support social investments, did not deter some players like us in the Industry because we had to think out of the box and delivered world class services,” CESL added.

According to Momodu Kassim Momodu & Toyin Akinosho’s report in the Petroleum Technology Development Journal titled Aje field: from OPL 309 to OML 113, described the discovery of oil in commercial quantity in the field as a big feat as the field was rated more of a gas than oil field in the past, which made Syntroleum Corporation, one of YFP’s early partners and technical advisers, to offer its gas-to liquids (GTL) technology for the gas expected to be produced from the field.