With the arrival of Egina floating production storage and offloading, plans are underway to develop local capacities to execute full fabrication and integration of floating production storage and offloading, FPSO vessels in-country within the next eight years, the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Mr.Simbi Wabote has said.

FPSO Vessel

Speaking when he accompanied the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu and other top officials of the oil and gas industry to inspect the Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited’s Egina FPSO docked at the SHI-MCI Yard, LADOL Free Zone in Lagos, he said that Egina is a landmark achievement in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.

“Our aim is to stretch the limit to get more for Nigeria. Our aspiration is that come the next seven to eight years, full integration of an FPSO must happen in Nigeria.”

Already, the Board and major operating companies are working towards full domiciliation of FPSOs.

The Zaba-zaba deepwater project being promoted by Nigerian Agip Exploration Limited (NAE) in partnership with Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) and the Bonga South West Aparo (BSWA) deepwater project also developed by SNEPCO have been planned to domicile 50 percent of the fabrication of modules and integration of the FPSOs,” he said.

The Executive Secretary commended Total Exploration and Production, for setting high Nigerian Content benchmarks with the Egina project, in engineering, fabrication, testing, coating and integration, stressing that the challenge for forthcoming projects would be how to raise the bar.

He also charged other operating companies in Nigeria to take a cue from Total’s can-do attitude and their fervent belief in the Nigerian capability.

“When the oil price fell to almost $27 a barrel, they did not stop the project. They continued and Nigerians were engaged.”

He said is for companies “to stop looking for waivers and change the default thinking from ‘it cannot be done here’ to ‘what do we need to do to make it happen.”

The NCDMB boss also affirmed that the Egina project has changed the narrative about the capacities and capabilities of oil servicing companies in Nigeria.

According to him, “The project simply raised the bar in local participation in various scope covering the Wells, Subsea Production Systems, Umbilicals, Flowlines and Risers, FPSO topsides, and Offloading buoy.

“One of the Nigerian contractors that fabricated the Buoy completed it three months ahead of schedule. The argument often put forward by project promoters is that Nigerian Content is expensive and cannot deliver on schedule. Egina has buried that mind set for forever.”