The Nigerian Content Development Board was established in 2010 to create and utilize indigenous capacity in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry which hitherto had been dominated by foreign entities. It was built on the following pillars which include
- Building Indigenous Technical Capability
- Compliance and Enforcement
- Creating an Enabling Environment for Investments
- Building Effective Internal Structures Which will lead to employee satisfaction
Since it’s current leadership led by industry thought leader and Executive Secretary Engineer Simbi Kesiye Wabote came on board in September 2016, the NCDMB has embarked on innovative and transformative initiatives which has boosted the nation’s economy.
The Service Level Agreements which it introduced led to a reduction in the tendering cycle for oil and gas operators from 36 months to nine months. This initiative has led to a reduction in the unit cost of oil production in the country. The NCDMB has now leveraged full automation of all it’s processes such as the application and approval of expatriate quota approvals, Nigerian Content Plan, Nigerian Content Equipment Certification and Nigerian Content Compliance Certificate leading to efficiency and effective service delivery in the oil and gas industry.
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It has deployed new monitoring and evaluation tools to gather data on the performance of Nigerian content in the hydrocarbons industry.
The 10 year Strategic Roadmap which Engr Wambote introduced will increase the performance of Nigerian Content from 28 percent to 70 percent by 2027 unlocking about 300,000 jobs and retaining $14billion to the local economy out of the $20billion estimated annual spend in the industry.
Under his watch the introduction of forensic audit of Nigerian Content Development Fund remittance by oil and gas companies has led to the huge recovery of arrears of unpaid NCDF levies by some defaulting companies promoting transparency and compliance.
Due to the lack of funding for oil and gas servicing companies, he established the Nigerian Content Intervention Fund a $200million facility for them and community contractors which has a single digit interest rate and a 1 year moratorium. To boost domestic refining capacity in Nigeria to reduce foreign imports which costs billions of dollars, the NCDMB has invested in modular refineries by Waltersmith Petroman a 5,000 barrels per day project at Imo State due for completion in 2020 and Azikel refinery with 12,000 bpd capacity.
The game changer is Project 100 initiative to identify 100 oil and gas startups and deploy resources (capacity building, funding and access to market) for them to scale and become globally competitive organizations.
To encourage domestic production of tools, equipment and spare parts, two Oil and Gas Parks will come on stream in Bayelsa State and Cross River State.
The NCDMB should establish Research Centre of Excellences at the Oil and Gas Industry Parks which will proffer cutting edge technologies to increase production capabilities by indigenous and marginal field operators, as well as deepen Nigeria’s local content capabilities for the startups, which will be incubated there so that they will leapfrog beyond the country into emerging hydrocarbon rich nations in Africa, such as Ghana, Mozambique and Uganda to provide services engineered for their markets.