A delegation from the Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) and a team of representatives of the International Oil Companies (IOCs) as well as top managers of Gulf Trade bank (GTB), who visited the Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics Base (LADOL), located behind Apapa port in Lagos, have endorsed and commended the ongoing $3.8 billion Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) as a means of achieving the nation’s local content drive.
The world class oil production platform project, built in partnership with Samsung Heavy Industry (SHI) as the technical partner while LADOL stands as the local content partner, was awarded in 2013 and the project has so far reached over 60 percent completion stage with the delivering of the FPSO fabrication yard in 2015 while the integration yard about to be delivered before year end.
With the completion of the Egina FPSO fabrication, the greater component of the ‘floating vessel topside,’ is now being built in Nigeria while the hull of the vessel is being built in South Korea simultaneously.
On its arrival in 2017, big cranes of 1,000; 2,000 and 5,000 cranes will be used to lift the fabricated pieces unto the hull of FPSO vessel and ready for processing and storing oil, when the vessel arrives in Nigeria next year.
Musa Kida, deputy managing director of Total Nigeria, the awarder of the Egina project, while speaking after inspection of the project site at LADOL base in Tarkwa bay, Apapa-Lagos Wednesday said his company was proud to be associated with such a project which he described as first of its kind in Africa.
According to him, Total’s support and confidence in bringing the project to Nigeria was influenced by the Nigerian Content initiative which was passed into law as the Nigerian Content Act 2010.
“Our visit today is very important. We are here to appraise work and our noble support for the Nigerian content. We have participated actively and supported fully the FPSO fabrication and integration facility that we are seeing today in LADOL base. This is a clear demonstration that Total supports the law and the nation’s economy. This project is first of its kind in Africa, since none like this has ever been built in Nigeria or elsewhere in the region before,” he said.
Kida further pointed that the project represents Total’s commitment to Nigeria, that is why a lot of money is being invested and it also symbolises the fact that Total strongly believes the Nigerian Content is here to stay.
“It was a huge technical struggle in taking the risk to believe that FPSO integration can indeed take place here or anywhere in Nigeria. Now it has remained our pride for taking this step, and we remain committed to it,” he added.
He further appealed to government and other IOCs not to make the Egina fabrication “a one-off project” that will seize to attract other projects. “This facility has been built to international standards, and Total is very comfortable with work here so far as we believe that this base is capable of fabricating very huge modules that will be utilised in the FPSO.
Continuing, the Total boss disclosed that the Egina installation will take place side-by-side at LADOL base early 2017. “My appeal therefore is that my colleagues in the oil industry should sustain this good beginning by ensuring that other FPSOs are done here at LADOL base.”
Daziba Patrick Obah, acting executive secretary of NCDMB on his part expressed satisfaction at the level of work being done at the site and its compliance to local content law. He called on other oil companies to key into the step taken by Total to boost local content in the oil and gas industry.
According to him, the Board was well aware that the LADOL base through the FPSO project “is creating 5,000 direct and 50,000 indirect jobs in the country and this is a thing of pride to the country as a major player in world oil exploration business.
“I look forward to seeing the 12 modules of the FPSO navigate out of this place in record time after completion. We heard they have good succession plans, and that the project is on schedule. We hope it will never die, as we thank all representatives of the IOCs for their words of commitments that they will do all within their powers to sustain it,” he said.
Earlier in his welcome address, Ladi Jadesimi, executive chairman of LADOL, who conducted the team round the base as well as the FPSO site, expressed gratitude to the Content Board for their supports, as well as the contract awarders, Total, “for taking a worthy risk in investing on the project which would have gone elsewhere outside Nigeria with attendant revenue losses and capital flight for Nigeria.
“LADOL also feels gratified at this engagement with SHI, for coming thus far and keeping faith in us. I am confident that the risk they took has paid off given the success recorded at this project thus far”, he said.
AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
