By Yemi Olakitan
The local content in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry has significantly increased, rising from 26% in 2017 to around 54% in 2022.
This was revealed on Monday during a presentation at the ongoing Nigerian Oil and Gas Energy Week in Abuja by Mr. Simbi Wabote, the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).
He revealed this positive achievement, emphasising the outstanding success made in fostering indigenous industry engagement.
Nigerian Content’s Role in Achieving Energy Security was the topic of Mr Wabote’s presentation at the event. He claimed that since the NCDMB began implementing the Strategic Roadmap five years ago, the percentage of Nigerian content in the oil and gas industry has increased significantly, rising from 26% in 2006 to 54% in 2022.
As part of his commitment to fulfilling his mandate, Mr Wabote also pledged to uphold standards while building the local supply chain’s capacity to provide effective and efficient services to the oil and gas sector.
He also urged participants in the oil and gas sector to become familiar with the Nigerian Content Regulations and the Nigerian Oil
and Gas Industry Content Development Act (NOGIC Act).
The NOGIC Act and the Nigerian content standards that govern local content, he said, “need to be read and understood by stakeholders.”
It may be argued that 81 percent of the workforce in the oil and gas sector is made up of Nigerians, while 80 percent of the workforce is responsible for project management.
Mr. Wabote added that the Nigerian Content Intervention Fund (NCI Fund), which had a $200 million budget, had been distributed to
approved companies for a total of $160 million.
The NCDMB’s chief executive promised that the Board would keep working to expand its efforts to give community contractors and Nigerian oil and gas service firms easy access to financing.
He stated that the NCDMB has built a framework for collaboration with the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and is working to promote relevant and trustworthy data and statistics.