Clara Nwachukwu

THEEkulo Cheyenne, a pipe laying badge recently acquired by Kaztec Engineering Ltd, a subsidiary of the oil and gas Chrome Group, has completed the installation of the topside on Addax Petroleum Development Corporation platform for its Oil Mining Lease, OML 123 operations.

Speaking on the breakthrough, which was done in record time and within budget, the General Manager, Engineering Services, Mr. Daniel Nicholson, told journalists that accomplishing the feat was not a mean task.

He explained, “After the acquisition in mid-August, we had to do a lot of work on the badge, rebuild most of the equipment including the fire_fighting; life saving; generators; air conditioners and every of these equipment had to be recertified.”

The American expert said the certification and recertification were carried out by the American Bureau of hipping, ABS, adding that without 100 percent certification, no aspect of the topside installation could have been executed.
He added that every step had to be approved in order not to jeopardize the insurance cover for the facilities.

Nicholson further explained that the installation was executed in phases, saying that in the first phase, there were about 85 workers working 24 hours for two months, and in the second phase, it was increased to about 135 people in order to set the topside.

The increase in the size of the workforce paid off, as “At about 13:00 hours on November 7th, we successfully installed the Addax ADSI Topside on the platform. The task was properly supervised by Superintendent Al Garribot. The operation was executed in total compliance with best industry safety practices and no incident recorded,” he said.

Nicholson noted that being the first job the badge, the management had to overcome Addax’s concern about the ability of Kaztec to deliver on the job, adding that the fact that inspections were carried out by third parties who came from different agencies also increased the issues.

Speaking further on the challenges of the installation, he said these were related to delays in coordinating the delivery of equipment, which were imported from different countries as well as getting the various agents to work at Kaztec’s pace.

“We also had to overcome the impression that s a local company, the job was going to be an uphill task. But we did it in record time, within budget and in very safe operations, as there were no incidents,” he stated.

The Group Executive Director, Technical, Mr. Adebanji Babarinde, speaking on the local content benefits and value addition, said, the feat has demonstrated that indigenous companies can excel if given the opportunity.

He noted that with the coming in force of the Nigerian Content Act, more Nigerian firms can prove their worth. “For Chrome/Kaztec, the feat has strengthened our confidence as well demonstrated that the badge can be put into use and accomplish that for which it was designed for such as offshore installations, pipe laying and other engineering jobs.”

He revealed that the success of the installation has earned the company bigger engineering jobs, hitherto executed by foreign companies, which it will start executing from December.

Babarinde also said that the topside installation helped to boost indigenous capacity in terms of knowledge and skills acquisition, as more than 70 Nigerians made up the workforce for the project.

He said in view of the technicality of the oil and gas industry, the key to success for any indigenous firm like Kaztec is delivering jobs according to high standard and international best practice.