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The Federal Government needs to encourage companies like the Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics Base (LADOL) and other indigenous companies to enable them create jobs for young school graduates and to continue to sell Nigeria to the outside world, said Olateru-Olagbegi Ilemobade, president, the Maritime Forum.
Maritime Forum is an umbrella body of undergraduates from the University of Lagos (UNILAG), who are in different disciplines but has common interest in maritime and allied ventures. These students form part of the stakeholders in the maritime including oil and gas industry, currently anticipating the arrival of the first ever made-in-Nigeria vessel.
These young undergraduates from UNILAG have in the last two weeks been trooping to the LADOL Free Trade Zone to behold the wonderful initiative. The over $3.8 billion FPSO, attracting people from Nigeria and overseas belong to the international oil giants, Total, built as a joint venture project between LADOL and Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) of South Korea.
The first batch of these young men and women visited the Apapa base of LADOL on April 22, to see a Nigerian dream come true. Little wonder then the second batch came a week after to savour the wonder its predecessor could not stop narrating.
Ilemobade, who said this when his members visited the LADOL based recently in Lagos, also commended companies like Total, the international oil giants, that is partnering LADOL, a local company to build FPSO. “This is the first of its kind in Nigeria and Africa; for an FPSO to be fabricated in Nigeria and it is a thing to be proud of. I’m proud to be a Nigerian because of what LADOL is doing in Nigeria”.
The second batch of the students that was conducted round by Adewole Gege, Security and Marine manager, was shown round the various fabrication points of the various components of the turnkey project. Gege said that the hull of the FPSO would be arriving from Seoul in less than two months for the fabricated components to be installed
He assured that with a berth of 11.5 metres draft made possible through a dredging exercise completed by a Brazilian firm, the base was ready to welcome the 30m x 60m size vessel, which every detail of its fabricated component is presently being supervised for standards by the owners, Total.
According to him, the fabrication job ratio on site is 90:10 foreign and local expertises, respectively because it is a new technology and the first of its kind in the Sub-Saharan Africa. He assured that at the end of the fabrication of the entire FPSO, the expertise ratio would increase to 70:30 with employment generation hitting 50,000 direct and indirect jobs as against the 2,000 people working there presently on daily basis.
The Security and Marine manager described an FPSO as a floating refinery for petroleum product storage, which could be moved from one location to the other.
In addition, he showed the students the proposed workshop for pipe coating, which would come on stream in the next two months.
He encouraged the students to develop interest in the maritime and oil sectors irrespective of their areas of discipline, reminding them that their backgrounds were meant to give them basic education that could enable them fit into any life endeavour.
Using his boss, Amy Jadesimi, managing director of LADOL, an Oxford-trained medical doctor, who presently has distinguished herself as oil and gas guru as an example, he said they could toe such a line to make it in life.
Gege also told the undergraduates that he read Business Administration first degree and Marketing, second degree in UNILAG but today he had deviated to become a security expert from where he is making a good living.
“My impression is that LADOL is a masterpiece, first of its kind in West Africa, which does not only showcase foreign expertise on display but one that gives so many locals employment opportunity … LADOL is performing great in Nigeria, not just giving employment to people but in the next ten to fifteen years, this zone will see so many projects coming up,” said Ilemobade, who cannot stop talking about his views and that of his colleagues, about LADOL.
“This is enough for government to encourage individuals and local companies; to grow local companies and to ensure and provide the proper framework for such companies to grow in Nigeria and to make the whole economy and Nigeria to be a better place for all”, the student leader added.
AMAKA ANAGOR-EWUZIE
