The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Engr. Austen Oniwon has commended FENOG Nigeria Limited on its capacity- building.
While saying that NNPC would partner with FENOG Nigeria Limited on capacity, building, so as to reduce restiveness in the Niger Delta region, the NNPC boss who spoke to newsmen at Chanomi Creeks after inspecting the Warri/Escravos Gas pipeline being handled by the indigenous firm, FENOG Nigeria Limited, said he was impressed with the capacity-building effort of FENOG.
The NNPC boss, who was represented by th Group Executive Director, Power and Gas of NNPC, Dr. David Ige, said FENOG has impacted positively on the locals in the oil rich Niger Delta in its capacity building and needed to be celebrated and supported by the government.
He said, “A good example of what we have done is to work closely with FENOG. And as many other local companies that are willing to show capability to work, we are ready to work with them. And NNPC, if you could recall, champions the local content agenda because we believe for the long term survival of our own company NNPC as well as the industry at large, it is important that we begin to domicile capability in Nigeria. And so we will support any indigenous company like FENOG. FENOG is not just a contractor anymore; FENOG is now a partner to NGC and NNPC. And that is the kind of relationship we are going to have with other indigenous company that are ready to work with us.”
According to him; “Building pipelines is not a trivial exercise, the terrain, the ecology and a whole lot of issues and that is why I believe is one of the key symbolism of the president’s local content policy. Because as you can see, this project is being delivered hundred percent by a local contractor, FENOG. And you can see quality of equipment that is used and this is world class equipment being delivered by world class Nigerian players.”
He added that; “And I think this is a perfect example of the kind of synergy we see between the agenda of the gas and oil sector as well as the local content for empowerment of our people. It is purely indigenous as you see. And with this kind of experience we believe that we are now having an indigenous company that can do any kind of task in the country. We did not have this kind of capability before. So I think that not only are we potentially going to be celebrating improved gas supply to power and think we should also be celebrating the success of our own indigenous people in this sector.”
The Executive Director of FENOG Nigeria Limited, Mr. Matthew Tonlagha said that “I want to thank the Group Executive Director of Gas and Power and the Managing Director of NGC for this visit to the Chanomi Creek river crossing. I am very happy seeing people like you today for a site visit and this will really encourage us in this Local Content Act that the president has signed.”
“I want to use this opportunity to thank Zakhem Nigeria Limited because they are the people that helped us to showcase this HDD technology in this country.
They are our client right now in the Warri/ Escravos Gas Pipeline project. They encouraged us so much to use this technology in the country. So if we are talking about this project we should not forget them because they are our client that gave us this project,” he stated.
According to him, “On the other hand, we are being supported by NNPC on the local content and even the President Jonathan and Petroleum Minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke have encouraged us to build capacity. Last year, the Executive Secretary/CEO of Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, Engr. Ernest Nwapa commissioned the PD 500, one of latest in the whole world. It is an encouragement and some few days back, we brought in our off-shore pipeline lay barge, Akpevweoghene.” Mr. Matthew Tonlagha added; “We want the whole world to know that we have confident in President Goodluck Jonathan and the Nigerian Content Act hence we have invested so much money to build capacity. And I am sure because of the demand and urgency of this project; we are going to put heads together to increase our work capacity to deliver this project in the very short time so that Nigerians could be happy about the Nigeria Content law.”
