Local Content: Trade Mission from Northsea Oil Soon
By Ndubuisi Francis
A large trade mission from Northsea Oil, New Castle, England, is billed to visit Nigeria between August 2 and 4 in a bid to improve local content in the oil industry. This follows the successful execution of the Bonga Buoy, an oil mooring facility commissioned with fanfare at the Snake Island, Lagos, by President Olusegun Obasanjo last month. The Bonga project was fabricated in New Castle on River Thames.
Akwa Ibom State Governor, Obong Victor Attah made the disclosure on the impending mission after a meeting with the Mooring Offshore Federation, an association of people working with Northsea Oil, during his just concluded visit to New Castle.
Attah, who spoke in Lagos weekend on arrival from Europe, said the trade mission was billed to be in Nigeria between August 2 and 4 to demonstrate what they can do to improve local content in Nigeria.
"Remember that the Bonga project was fabricated in New Castle on the River Thames and so we were talking to them and now that the Federal Government is bent on local content drive, to make sure that we have some of them coming and working in Nigeria, providing the sort of facilities they provided in New Castle out of Nigeria", he affirmed.
Attah who said his visit to the United States of America, United Kingdom and Malaysia was successful, noted that he met with the Deputy Director, External Affairs, ExxonMobil; Deputy Managing Director of Shell and a representative of TotalFinaElf during discussions.
He affirmed that he was invited to Malaysia by Mobil to straighten gray areas, said there were issues that needed to be sorted out with the company.
"I was invited by Mobil because they were launching a new vessel (FSO) where they will actually store their crude oil before exportation. Rather than lay pipelines to the mainland or onshore, they will now store the crude as they move further offshore. And we went to launch it. It was very useful. At least, I learnt a lot of things from the experience of Malaysia", he said.
Attah disclosed that he also visited Washington DC where he held discussions on the state's airport and the maintenance hangar projects.
According to him, he was also in Harvard to attend a programme for leaders which dwelt on political and economic reforms.
"I was a student at Harvard. The programme was for leaders and the programme was for managing political and economic reforms. So, it was very pertinent, very germane to our circumstances and they worked us really hard", he said.
|
