In its drive to make the oil and gas sector contribute more to the nation’s economy, the Honourable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu has led his Ministry and agencies to launch “Project 100” today, 31st of January, 2019. Project 100 is an oil and gas industry’s intervention to identify, recognize and nurture wholly indigenous Nigerian oil and gas service providers into large scale players.
The impact of this latest intervention by Dr. Ibe Kachikwu will tell on job creation, technology development, wealth creation and other local content indicators.
Driven by one of the agencies of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources – Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Project 100 will promote companies and players that will generate above N500 million per annum in turn-over. The basic qualification for selection of the companies is just for them to be “wholly owned indigenous oil and gas service providers without international affiliations except for technical partnerships.”
The project 100 interventions encapsulate non-financial interventions and financial linkages. The non-financial intervention is a provision of non-pecuniary intervention such as strategic business/technical support (Policy intervention), access to markets, capacity building, research and development and business insight. And, the target beneficiaries that qualify for non-financial intervention are providers of high-impact oil and gas services, geosciences and seismic services, marine services, drilling services and engineering services.
The financial linkages are provisions of relevant linkages for actual financial and pecuniary interventions to beneficiaries for well-targeted initiatives that promote local content development. It encapsulates access to finance and interventions which will kindle merger and acquisition (M&A) opportunities to providers of fabrication and construction services, petroleum engineering services, logistic services, transportation services, technology, training and catering services.
Some commercial banks, development banks as well as multinational agencies have been drafted into the Project 100 intervention as sponsors for the financial linkages, whilst the delivery partners for the non-financial intervention include policy makers, business support partners, product end users, technical partners and quality assurance partners.
Speaking at the launch event, the Executive Secretary of the NCDMB, Engr. Simbi Wabote who is the driver of the project said “the whole idea is to get behind those companies and see how the Board can support them by fighting for jobs for them and also support them with the Nigerian Content Development Fund to grow them to the next level.”
Earlier in her address at the launch event, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Dr. Folasade Yemi-Esan noted that the Project 100 initiative would galvanize local operators in the oil and gas industry to perform optimally and become large scale players, which in turn would ensure job creation and value addition.
Olujimi Oyetomi
Press Unit, Ministry of Petroleum Resources.
