By Oscarline Onwuemenyi
It is a common belief that more than fifty years of petroleum exploration in the country has seen very little impact in the sub-text of petroleum and technological education, and therefore the development of local expertise in the sector.

Over the years, stakeholders in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry have decried the continuous reliance on the deployment of foreign technology and expertise in the industry, saying it portends grave danger to the economy.

The Federal government, to whom most of the petroleum resources accrue, has recently found itself under immense pressure to address this huge imbalance in the application of both human and capital resources vis a vis local content in the sector. And until recently, government’s response to crass marginalization of local operators and technology in the oil and gas industry has been tepid and nonchalant, to say the least.

The authorities appeared to be more concerned in spending the massive revenues amassed from the sale of crude than the what and how the crude is produced. Even operators in the system who have benefited from the status quo would be quick to remind anyone that the ‘technology’ used in the exploration of oil and gas resources were as far-fetched as they were foreign. Education and training of local technologists and other petroleum engineers was equally considered expensive and only children of the well-heeled could even dream of getting such education, which is often got in foreign lands.

At a recent conference organized by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) in Calabar, Cross Rivers State, many stakeholders lamented that after over 50 years of crude oil exploration and exploitation activities, it was sad that the country could not boast of any technology developed in-country to facilitate jobs in the industry, as everything was imported at exorbitant cost to the operators.

Managing Director of Shell Nigeria, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, laid the blame on the poor state of the nation’s education sector, saying priority was not given to technological based research and development. It was a trend replicated all over sub-saharan Africa, the Shell boss said. “I am so worried that we continue to be an import dependent nation. We always look at the short term. We over depend on foreign technolgy from the onshore to the deepwater to unlock our potentials in the industry,” Sunmonu lamented. According to him, the resolution of the problem would best be found in a public/private sector partnership where grants would be given to boost research and development in tertiary institutions.

“The government and private sector should think of how to get into the government must partner with private sector to attract the right technology into the country. ‘The government has to take the lead. We must stop relying on foreign technology but, rather, through self effort and partnership, start developing technology to get the best from the industry,” Sunmonu advised.

Prof. D. Appah of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) noted that the universities lacked the right infrastructure for indigenous manpower development and urged that more funds be deployed to improve infractructure in tertiary institutions. “We need to do more to provide the facilities because we have the people to train others but no facilities in our universities,” he said.

Mr. Alex Neyin, a former manager with Chevron and SPE African Regional Director said government must provide the right environment for research by ensuring stable power supply. Governmment, he said, should also provide rebates and tax incentives to private firms involved in oil and gas research and development projects, while the school system in the country has to be more technology driven.

President of the SPE, Mr. Tony Abolarin, said since most of the projects in the industry was jointly funded by the government and operators, the funding of research should also be jointly undertaken by the two partners in the industry.

“Every dollar spent in the industry is contributed from the Nigerian government and operators; both should also jointly fund research and development because we need to have our technology especially as we are moving more into the offshore,” Abolarin said.

The establishment of the Petroleum Technology Development Fund, PTDF, has however destroyed some of the myth associated with the oil and gas production in the country. Indeed, over the past decade, the Fund has been leading the way in the training and creation of research and development projects that would produce ‘home-made’ expertise and technology for the oil and gas industry.

The PTDF Journey has indeed been an interesting one since its establishment in 1973, then as a desk or unit of the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), until it was given full autonomy after the nation attained democracy in 1999.

Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has explained that the reason he granted full autonomy to the PTDF was because of his belief that the organisation had immense benefit for the development of Nigeria’s oil and gas potentials.

Obasanjo, whose administration in the year 2000 liberated the Fund from the DPR where the Fund was domiciled only as a desk for 27 years with little activity, was recently given an award for making PTDF a fully functional agency of government, with the mandate of developing indigenous capacity for the oil and gas industry.

According to Obasanjo, the PTDF and the Local Content initiative remain two of the best instruments of government that will make Nigeria not just nominally an oil and gas country, but capable of propelling the nation to technologically, professionally and managerially self sufficient in the industry, and stand side by side with any other oil and gas country in the world. “If we can achieve content and capacity building in the oil and gas sector, we can also do it in other areas of economic activity,” he said.

He added that the intention for establishing the Fund in 1973 was right, as Nigeria was then emerging as oil and gas country, and needed to train local expertise, and manpower to operate and manage the sector.

Meanwhile, the Executive Secretary of PTDF, Engr. Muttaqha Rabe Darma has announced the ambitious plans by the Fund to train over 20,000 Nigerians in its Overseas Scholarship Scheme (OSS), over the next few years. According to him, it was necessary for the country to produce the manpower, systems and institutions that will facilitate the takeover of operations and management in the nation’s oil and gas industry.

He said, “PTDF plans to train over 20,000 Nigerians in the next five years to occupy various positions in the oil and gas industry as Petroleum Engineers, Geo-Scientists, Geo-physicists, chemical engineers, process engineers, among other specialized fields required to meet our desire to grow local skills in the industry.”

He pointed out that over 90 percent of all goods and services used in the industry, valued at over $18 billion annually, are imported from overseas. “The consequence is that Nigeria cannot be said to be deriving maximum benefits from its oil and gas industry in terms of employment, technology transfer and other socio-economic milieu that would have impacted on the nation in general. The PTDF, of course, is determined to bridge the manpower and technology gap in the industry,” he added.

Darma noted that in spite of the many challenges and controversies that the Fund faced over the years, it had also succeeded in a vital aspect of its mandate, which is populating the oil and gas industry with well-trained and internationally certified Nigerians as well as equipping and upgrading local institutions to train students in various aspects of the industry.

He noted that as at September, 2011 the Fund has trained over 4,000 Nigerian scholars at both Masters and Doctoral levels in critical disciplines in the oil and gas sector at top ranked universities in the United Kingdom under the OSS. “We have also completed the training abroad of select Nigerians to become internationally certified international welding practitioners, welding technologists and engineers to form the core of Nigerian Specialist welders to train welders in-country for the oil and gas industry.

“So far, 500 Nigerians have been trained in-country in fillet welding as the first stage of welding and certification programme, while plans have been completed to commence the training of 300 underwater welders,” Darma said.

The PTDF boss also announced that the Fund has completed the training of 2,700 local engineers in Engineering Design Software relevant to the industry. “These include Process Simulation, Plant Design Management System, Structural Analysis, Project Management Software, among others.” He explained that more than 35 percent of its scholars are actually working in the Nigerian oil and gas industry, even as he noted that it was beyond the mandate of the Fund to enforce the absorption of its scholars into the industry at the end of their overseas training.

“However, we are working with the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) to ensure an immediate increase in the number of Nigerians operating in the industry in the next couple of years,” he stated.

Darma has also announced plans by the Fund to end its popular Overseas Scholarship Scheme (OSS) by the year 2013, explained that the decision was prompted by the Fund’s desire to harness potentials of local universities for training of students in petroleum technology-related courses. He said, “Our desire is to look inwards and rejuvenate our local universities and other technological institutions to be able to give our students what they go overseas to get. Therefore, in the next three years, we plan to limit some of the programmes our students travel abroad for, at least from the MSc programmes downward.”

He noted that, “The PTDF is also upgrading local universities and technology institutions in a wholesome manner, so they can provide these skills and proficiencies that are required for the petroleum industry.

“The idea is to bring our local universities at par with the international institutions like Imperial College in London, by upgrading their facilities, their faculties and even the teaching skills. This we will do by taking the professors abroad to shadow-learn at top universities in the world and improve their knowledge about the latest and most modern technologies and developments in the sector.

“We want to be able to bring the Nigerian higher institutions to the same level as what obtains abroad where we take our students, and thereby harness potentials in our institutions and our students and lecturers to the maximum. If our schools can provide the skills and knowledge we need, why do we need to take our best brains and resources abroad,” he queried.

More importantly, he said, the country would be able to invest the millions of dollars that it expends sending students overseas in institutions, thereby boosting our educational resource.