By Benjamin Orisemeke
The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) at the weekend said it would invest $3 billion in the oil and gas industry for the next five years in Nigeria.
Shell’s Managing Director, Mr. Osagie Okunbor, who said this at the second edition of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Opportunity Fair (NOGOF) in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, said the company was keen to expand local content in the oil and gas sector.
The NOGOF was organized by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).
Okunbor said the proposed investment would bring huge benefits to the country and its people in terms of contracts and jobs among others.
According to him, “These remain exciting times for Nigeria as Shell along with its Partners will be maturing several projects in support of Nigeria’s growth ambition.
“A cocktail of policies and the active support of Government and its agencies like NCDMB have made these investments possible. The industry continues to witness improved cycle times with NCDMB.
“We have an investment portfolio of over $15bln over the next 5 years, Shell’s investments will bring huge benefits to the country and its people – contracts, jobs, thus underscoring the theme of this year’s NOGOF,” he added.
Okunbor said Shell recently announced the Final Investment Decision (FID) on the 300 million Assa North Ohaji (ANOH) gas development project in Imo State.
He said on completion, the project is expected to generate circa 1200MW to power circa 1.2m homes (1MW – 1000homes) by supplying gas into the domestic gas market.
He added: “We also issued Invitation to Tender (ITT) for Bonga South West Aparo (BSWA) and as a shareholder in the NLNG Train 7, we are on track for FID later this year.
“In addition to these, we are also maturing several sizeable projects planned to start within the next five years with 28 Projects covering Export Gas, Domestic Gas and Oil projects spread across Deep Offshore, Shallow Water, Swamp and Land terrains.
“Benchmark for all these projects is to meet and where possible surpass the 70% Nigerian Content target set for BSWA”.
He mentioned other projects as the construction of over 200 wells; 1000 km of flowlines and bulk lines; subsea umbilicals, risers and flowlines (SURF); jackets, platforms, hull and manifolds.
Others are major oil and gas facility modifications and upgrades both onshore and deep water and at least 4 gas compression projects.
He said: “Employment opportunities are huge, not to mention the spin-off in allied services. These projects also offer huge capacity building opportunities in the delivery of Human Capacity Development (HCD) training, increased community content/ participation, in-country fabrication, increased utilization of Nigerian vessels, re-skilling of Nigerians to take up more roles in shallow and deep-water operations and technology transfer.
“Beyond the project phase, on completion, these projects will offer significant brownfield opportunities in asset maintenance, logistics, among others”.
