Page 22 - Nigeriaone mag 2 edition en

It was acknowledged as well by some panelists that implementing local content poses some challenges. While
some progress was made in enhancing Africa's oil and gas workforce through improved youth participation,
there were also some gaps. The Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons of Equatorial Guinea, Gabriel Mbega
Obiang Lima, admitted the continent has focused mainly on the upstream sector, neglecting the downstream
and middle stream segments. He stated “ We want more women to work in the oil and gas industry. There
needs to be conducted a study as to why women are not progressing to be employed by companies in the
industry. Institutions should prepare special programs for women to allow them to interact and to encourage
increased participation in the sector.” Free trade agreements among African firms were also proposed by the
minister to strengthen cooperation and capacity building. Nigeria's extensive oil and gas experience can be
applied to help Ghana and Senegal enhance local content. Other suggested ways for improving local content
development within Africa's oil and gas sector were mentioned during the panel discussion, including
information sharing by African governments and stakeholders, the creation of a continental education
certification standard by the African Union, and the creation of a regional and continental database of
engineers.
During a recent event in Nigeria, local content development was a key topic. In Lagos, the Nigerian Content
Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has organized a forum focused on "maximizing potentials in
the Midstream and Downstream oil and gas sector”. At the opening ceremony, Chief Timipre Sylva
highlighted the importance of such an event that would provide a platform to "sensitize and enlighten
stakeholders about the Board's capacity building intervention to support Nigerian Content Development in
the midstream and downstream sectors.". He explained President Buhari’s mandate: a drive to increase
domestic refinery capacity. He described the presidential mandate under his Next Level Agenda: a drive to
increase domestic refinery capacity. NCDMB's partnership with local refineries such as Waltersmith
Refinery, Azikel Refinery, and Atlantic Refinery, grew out of the government's drive to boost domestic
refining capacity. Mr. Sylva wanted this partnership “to be the catalyst for the industrialization of the
Nigerian Oil and Gas industry and its linkage sectors.” Besides, he praised the Nigerian President,
Muhammadu Buhari for creating a conducive environment in the oil and gas sector for local content to
flourish.

“Under the Decade of gas Initiative, gas has been
declared a transition fuel towards our actualization
of net-zero carbon emission. The government has
supported critical projects such as NLNG Train 7,
Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas Pipeline, Nigeria-
Morocco gas Pipeline, Trans-Saharan Pipeline, and
the National Gas Transportation Network Code.”
African oil-producing countries are clearly working
actively to promote the development of local con-
tent within the energy sector. Despite significant
progress in the past few years, there are still a
number of challenges to be resolved. African
economies can be boosted by leveraging opportu-
nities for local content development. The skills of
the African youth should be used efficiently and ef-
fectively to achieve economic growth, even though
foreign expertise is necessary to meet international
standards
African engineers

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