NIGERIA’S near total dependence on expatriates for oil exploration activities may be short-lived as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and some indigenous firms are aggressively developing manpower in the sub-sector.
The country has also stepped up efforts to become self-sufficient in pipeline production.

At the forefront of this campaign to build local capacity in oil exploration is BK Tabulars Nigeria Limited, which has taken advantage of the incentives provided under the Local Content Policy for indigenous firms to build Nigeria’s capacity in oil pipeline threading.

An excited NNPC Group Managing Director, Mr. Austen Oniwon, at the company’s feat, said with the development, Nigeria would soon reduce its dependence on expatriates in oil exploration and pipeline production.
Oniwon spoke at the weekend in Onne Free Trade Zone, Rivers State, when he commissioned BK Tubulars’ 90,000-tonnes capacity oil pipe threading plant.
He said private participation in the local content initiative could eliminate the need for Nigeria to source expertise overseas in key areas of oil exploration.
Oniwon said the start of production by the plant would help rejuvenate the oil industry and make Nigeria the hub of energy service delivery in Africa.
He described pipe threading as novel and a direct offshoot of the “Nigerian content division of the NNPC, set up to build in-country capacity and capability, as well as a competitive supply and service sector”.

The NNPC chief said: “With the BK Tubulars’ plant, more threading of plain-end pipes can now be undertaken in Nigeria, which will certainly reduce if not totally eliminate the need for oil and gas companies to source such expertise overseas”.
The Nigerian firm is a subsidiary of Botro Marine and Oil Services. Its Managing Director, Mr. Oluwole Odunayo, said the company refocused on the supply of exploration and production pipes (OCTG) given the strategic importance of pipes in the crude oil production chain while providing support services for upstream oil companies.

Odunayo said the firm has the capacity to make Nigeria self-sufficient in oil exploration and become a major source of employment generation in the country. He said BK Tubulars would employ over 100 Nigerian technical personnel and five expatriates.

He said with assistance from its Swiss technical partners, Raystahl AG, BK had already demonstrated the proficiency and would soon become the biggest pipe threading plant in Africa, adding that with a record supply of 5,250 pipes to SNEPCO in 2007, the firm had made in-road into the sector.   

According to him, “this project has adequately positioned Nigeria to supply pipes to other countries in Africa, therefore, becoming a foreign exchange earner and improving our balance of trade. Of course, that comes after the fact that this plant is a giant stride towards making Nigeria self-sufficient in exploration and pipe production since threading is a major technical phase of the process”.
He added that by 2007 when it became apparent that the NNPC was determined to execute the Local Content Policy, especially the threading of pipes, “we went into partnership with Raystahl AG, which gave rise to BK Tubulars Nigeria Limited - the biggest pipe threading plant in Africa. Today, Botro Marine holds the sole franchise to the plant in Nigeria”, he said.

Odunayo said with the plant threading 90,000 tonnes of pipes at full capacity, “this will complement the government’s efforts at curbing youth restiveness and substantially improve the Niger Delta economy,  adding that the plant would help in conserving enormous amount of foreign exchange that would have been paid to overseas’ mills for the same service”.