By Jim Rex Lawson Moses
The National Chairman of Oil and Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria, OGTAN, Prof. Mike Onyekonwu, has said that only the proper training of Nigerian workers will guarantee local content development in the oil and gas industry.

Onyekonwu, who is also a Director at the Institute of Petroleum Studies, University of Port Harcourt, , said this recently in Lagos, at a workshop organized by OGTAN in collaboration with the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB.

The theme of the workshop was: “Professional Training Standards to Drive Nigerian Content Development in the Oil and Gas Industry.”

He argued that there was the need to track training to ensure that it is useful and relevant to the industry. His words, ‘’we need to formalise training to get more value; training should be domesticated to handle issues that are peculiar to our environment and generate adequate human capital for our oil and gas industry even enough for export because training is key to local content development.”

He added, “We want to discourage portfolio trainers – people who just walk into companies to organize trainings; invite trainers and after that, walk away.”

On his part, the Chairman, OGTAN, Lagos State Chapter, Mr. Afe Mayowa, noted that the objective of the workshop was to create the necessary awareness geared towards effective membership drive across the country.

He said it is also meant to build capacity within the industry to international standards; and facilitate the implementation of total compliance with local content requirements through effective human capacity development strategies in alignment with Federal Government directives and applicable laws.

Other sub-themes for the workshop focused on NCDMB requirements for domiciliation training; implementation of local capacity building initiatives – IOC expectations; determining and addressing issues and challenges faced by Nigerian trainers; and the establishment of work groups to address and proffer solutions to identified issues and challenges.

The event, which also provided an excellent opportunity for networking, recorded a large turnout of key players within the oil and gas industry training sub-sector, as participants.

OGTAN, which vision is to develop a Nigerian oil and gas training business group that interfaces with the operators, international organisations and government, to ensure a total human capacity development in the industry and the attainment of the Nigerian Content goals, was formed with the support of the Nigerian Content Division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to address the manpower development needs of the Nigerian oil and gas industry.