Oil Sector spent $3.7billion on marine vessels in four years — NCDMB

Peter Olaniyi |

The Executive Secretary, Nigeria Content Development Board (NCDB), Mr Simbi Wabote has said the country oil sector spent a total of $3.7 billion on marine vessels between 2014 and 2018 while 73 per cent of the total amount spent went to crew boats, security vessels, diving support vessels and fast supply intervention vessels.

Wabote stated this in response to a statement made by the Minister of Petroleum, Timipre Slyva on his Twitter account that the Federal Government as begun the feasibility study for the construction of a shipyard on Brass Island in Bayelsa.

He noted that Nigeria has a long coastline of 853 kilometers and navigable inland waterways of 3,000 kilometers, which offer immense potential for maritime sector development, stressing that Brass coastline, was very close to the Atlantic Ocean.

Wabote disclosed that there ”are over 20,000 ships working for the oil and gas sector in Nigerian waters and the annual spend was over $600 million in the upstream sector.”

Wabote informed that most of the vessels operating in the oil industry were taken to Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroun and other countries for dry docking because Nigeria’s local dry docks were built many years ago and no longer provide the required services.

He further disclosed that the Brass Shipyard and other ongoing efforts to catalyse manufacturing would help the board achieve the target of 70 per cent Nigerian content by 2027.

The Minister of State for Petrolem Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva,had earlier in a statement posted on the Twitter account of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) on Saturday said the federal government has commenced construction of a shipyard in Brass island, Bayelsa state.

Sylva said that the feasibility study would cater for the maintenance and repair services of cargo vessels, oil tankers and Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) carriers, stating that the project will be executed by China Harbour Engineering Company, which had carried out similar projects across the globe as well as in Nigeria.

According to him, the feasibility study will be funded by the NCDMB as part of its overarchinng mandate to domicile key oil and gas industry infrastructure and increase retention of industry spend.

According to him “The scope of the feasibility study includes geotechnical and bathymetric surveys, conducting a market study and ascertaining an optimal construction scale.

“It also includes developing technical proposal and construction plan and estimation of the required investment to bring the project into reality, ” he said.

The Minister noted that the high traffic of vessels in and out of Nigeria provided huge opportunity to retain substantial value in-country through the provision of dry-dock services.

He said the shipyard project would further develop and harness the nation’s position in the oil and gas value chain and linkage to other sectors of the economy.

On shipyard prospects, Sylva said the Nigeria LNG’s Train 7 project was expected to increase the company’s LNG capacity from 22MTPA to 30MTPA.

He said this would induce the acquisition of additional LNG carriers to the existing ones, all of which would need maintenance and servicing.

The Minister added that the project would also benefit from the upcoming Africa Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) implementation as Nigeria could serve as hub for ship-building and repairs.