By Dotun Ibiwoye

Kabelmetal Nigeria Plc’s (a Nexans affiliated company) request to promote shipboard and petrochemical/refinery cables as potential Nigerian content has been approved by the Nigeria Content Development Monitoring Board (NCDMB).

The company’s new capacity to manufacture shipboard, umbilical, refineries and petrochemical LV cables for the offshore market has also boosted local ability in the petroleum industry.

Speaking at the recent facility visit to Kablemetal in Lagos, NCDMB’s Executive Secretary, Engr. Simbi Wabote, said that the company and other Cable manufacturers in Nigeria will get all necessary support they need to boost their capacities and meet the expectations of the oil and gas industry.

With recent the launch of 200 million dollars Nigeria content intervention fund, which is open to contributors of the fund, Kablemetal is also entitled to access the fund by virtue of the contracts they get in the industry.

They company also has the requirement to take part in the application of the intervention fund which has eight percent interest rate and five-year tenure maximum limit of 10 million dollars to support financial challenges of the industries in that sector.

Simbi affirmed that the issues with banks finances was why the fund was launched to support companies that have the potentials to employ Nigerians and to retain the much-needed foreign exchange in the country.

He stated that it is a very transparent process and its online to apply: “You don’t need to know anybody we monitor it closely and ensures that potential contributors of the fund are beneficiaries and ensure the bank managing it for us go by the guideline given to them to operate.

The NCDMB boss also said that the oil and gas operations requires lots of cables and the importation of cables will be resisted since local cable manufacturers are capable of meeting the needs of the oil industry.

While commending Kablemetal of its maximum Local Content approach and the listed job creation potential, Simbi stated that one of the objective of the local content is that. it does not compromise quality and standard.

He also stated that alot of people are not aware that the petroleum industry consumes a lot of cables in their business, citing that the number of cables that run through a Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) is enonomous.

The NCDMB’s boss said that contrary to general perception that cables are meant for building alone, a lot of it is used in the oil and gas industry to support instrumentation because all digital process have to pass through signal cables going back and forth.

According to him: “The general perception is that cable is for building, a lot of it is used in the oil and gas industry to support instrumentation and the rest because all digital process have to have those signal cables going back and forth but not many people know this. Your tenacity and the forecast to look at the market opportunities in the oil and gas sector is commendable. It therefore behoves upon us to work with you and encourage you especially in this area you have establish capacity as the affairs of the oil and gas business is ongoing is to ensure that those activities for the capacity are domicile in country so the industry players would be encouraged to purchase from you the capacity you have been able to build in-country.

He added:”It is always very easy when you import. We have always told the companies to say if you argue that the production doesn’t meet your specification, work with the manufacturer and tell them what is required and I am sure any business would want to do what they can to meet the specification of the industry because one of the objective of the local content is that it does not compromise quality and standard because our business is very high capital-intensive and risky and so once standard are lowered then we would loss everything that have been invested.

Chief Executive Officer, Kabelmetal Nigeria, Robert Kretschmer, noted that they have more orders than supply but can only use the money they get to re-invest on material then go gradually to meet up with the finances available.

“The challenge of manufacturing business in Nigeria is not so simple and its known that manufacturing is probably the most difficult aspect of business in Nigeria because we have the highest exposure in terms of financing because you get your own raw materials you start producing to sell before you get your money so we much more exposed to the finance side”.

“Since the naira devaluation, things are not going like before and banks are barely giving money when you look at financing your business because if you want to buy forex you must put deposit in the bank , you cannot use your over draft or import finance facilities to buy anything. This has brought down the whole economy in Nigeria, oil manufacturing companies are heavily affected.