Experts advocate co-location framework to boost job creation

Industry players have called on government to embrace the idea of co-location in the gas sub-sector of the oil and gas industry by formulating a framework to mitigate the looming disaster of unemployment in the country.

Describing co-location in the gas sector as the solution for government to create more employment in the country, the experts argued that it would not only reduce the risk investors have to face putting up new infrastructure, but also be a resolution for them to provide enabling infrastructure to support investors for industrialisation.

According to an energy consultant, Charles Mojomi, at a co-location training organised by AfriTal in Lagos, rather than have investors be burdened by developing new structure, government should formulate a policy document to facilitate the usage of their gas facilities that are underutilised, so that third part investors are allowed to operate with a framework acceptable to both parties.

He noted that government should see that policy direction as a shortcut to create job growth because an assessment by the group has shown that four facilities, (Warri Refinery and Petrochemical Company, Port Harcourt Refinery Kaduna Refinery, Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) have been projected to create more than two million direct and indirect jobs if co-located.

Majomi cited that there are over 20 potential petrochemical plants that can spring off from Polypropylene (Petrochemical Derivative chart) from the Warri refinery adding that others like NLNG too have potential for over 20 petrochemical plants that can spring off from the product of Ethane Cracker.

“Co-location on both green and brown fields can promote not only the sharing of infrastructural facilities and services, it will give chance for job to be created by adding value to our natural resources,” he stated.

Making reference to a National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report that states that Nigeria needs to create 60 million jobs in the next 10 years when the unemployment figure is expected to hit 60 million people, another energy consultant, Dahiru Moyi maintained that it is only the gas space that can provide that kind of job, especially when Nigeria is willing to put up sovereign guarantees in gas development projects.

The narrative, he explained, can be changed if investors realise the opportunity in the gas space, because “when the right people get involve, they would led the way and people would be employed in a short time.”

Giving his take on the state of refineries in Nigeria and how they can attract investments, Moyi remarked the people downplaying the standard of Nigerian refineries only want to buy them off cheaply and to say they are obsolete or out of shape is a fraud.

He explained that as compared to refineries in European countries that are utilised to a maximum of about 95 per cent of their capacities, the Nigerian ones have never worked 25 per cent of their capacities, so “to say the refineries are in bad shape, and the worse in the world is not fair.”

Moyi, however admitted that the problems encountered is mainly lack of maintenance as he quoted the Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Maikanti Baru to have said Kaduna refinery in the last 20 years haven’t done any turn around maintenance apart from superficial repairs, but was also optimistic that they can be revamped and revived easily without huge investments.

“The Nigerian Government needs to continue to prioritise job creation as a central thrust of its policy to avert an impending and unravelling of the social fabric of the country,” Mojomi added.