PNC Forum: Amazing energy and consistency of industry players, By Esueme Dan Kikile

In 10 unbroken years of active participation in the Practical Nigerian Content Forum, organised by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, the leading lights of Nigeria’s oil and gas industry have thus far signified that local content has something of a creedal force in their ranks. In-country value addition through enhanced local capacities and capabilities remains the unchanging focus – what they must pursue and actualise to enhance the country’s economic performance and development.

The apostolic zeal of the industry stakeholders, as they assemble in their hundreds from year to year to appraise the state of the industry and to determine what way(s) to maximise opportunities along lines spelt out in the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act, 2010, is most remarkable. In the spirit of collaboration and stakeholder engagement issues of topical importance are ever adopted as themes for presentation and deliberations in different editions of the Forum.

Innovations At NCDMB and Results

NCDMB and stakeholders have been thus guided in subsequent actions by way of interventions, policies and compliance. The Board gets more and more innovative as challenges emerge through workshops and exhibitions. Concepts and undertakings such as Nigerian Oil and Gas Technology (NOGTECH) Hackathon, Nigerian Oil and Gas Opportunity Fair (NOGOF), Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Joint Qualification System (NOGIC JQS), and research and development funding, were in response to felt need and have bolstered the sector.

Together, the industry regulator and the oil and gas companies – upstream, midstream and downstream – have moved mountains, radically altering the status and image of Nigeria as rent-seeker and placing her in a respectable position as resource-endowed and with appropriate technological capabilities to efficiently exploit and utilise hydrocarbons.

The Difference NCDMB Has made

In twelve years of implementation of the NOGICD Act, 2010, Nigeria, through the Board’s well targeted strategic interventions, has developed the widest range of competencies and facilities for engineering, procurement, fabrication, and a lot else, and thus upped in-country value retention from less than 5% in 2010 to 46% in the first quarter of 2022. And 70% is in focus as we march towards the 2027 terminal date of the Board’s Nigerian Content 10-Year Strategic Road Map.

Today the world-class fabrication yards and pipe mills have turned Nigeria into a hub for related businesses in the Gulf of Guinea, just as the country’s service companies now operate as international servicing companies in different African countries. That’s the success story of the NCDMB made possible by far-sighted and resourceful leadership that carries all stakeholders along, unhesitatingly intervening in material terms to bolster operational capabilities of companies. At the 5-8 December PNC Forum is another platform with great possibilities for participants and the wider society.

What To expect from PNC 2022

Face to face with potential clients and investors, participants in PNC Forum 2022 in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, will deliberate on the theme, “Deepening Nigerian Content Opportunities in the Decade of Gas.” Key topics, as highlighted at the PNC dedicated website are:

• Harnessing Nigerian content opportunities for indigenous companies in Nigeria’s “Decade of Gas”
• What opportunities have been revealed by the Seven Ministerial Regulations for increasing Nigerian content compliance
• Outlining Nigeria’s future energy mix and Nigerian content objectives over the next 30 years
• What are the enablers required to bridge the capacity gap for improved local content implementation with a growing focus on gas?
• How can indigenous companies attract required funding?
• What efforts are in place to explore Nigerian content opportunities in AfCTA?

Conclusion

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In the broadest terms the PNC Forum is billed “to help shape the Nigerian Content Agenda for the next twelve months.” Industry regulator and all stakeholders would hopefully be on the same page all the way, directing energies and resources in a manner that would best promote corporate success as well as national development. But economic spin-offs never fail, particularly for a host city and state, in this case, Uyo and Akwa Ibom, whose hospitality industry is already bubbling in anticipation of several hundreds of guests in early December.

PNC Forum 2022 is the place to be for fresh ideas and strategies in the nation’s quest for economic development through effective and efficient management of her abundant hydrocarbon resources, especially gas as the transition fuel for Nigeria.

Esueme Dan Kikile, ESQ, is the manager, Corporate Communications, NCDMB.