Oil/gas sector: New Bill to unlock $10bn in Nigeria’s local content yearly underway

n amendment on a new bill in the oil and gas sector that will ensure that Nigeria joins the league of industrialised nations and further help the government save $10 billion yearly via local content is in the works at the National Assembly.

The proposed law, called Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development bill ( NOGICD bill), came out of decades of agitation for local value and has the capability to facilitate growth of local content in the oil and gas sector by 70 percent.

Simbi Wabote, executive secretary, Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), said as much as $380 billion was going out of the country as capital flight when the content law was not in place.

“With the new bill about 300,000 jobs would be generated yearly,” Wabote said at a Nigerian content summit with the theme “Nigerian Content Development: Facing the Future.”

According to Wabote, the recent disruptions caused by

Covid-19 pandemic should force Nigeria to prioritise local content development.

At the virtual event, Rosario Osobase, secretary general at Petroleum Contractors Trade Section (PCTS) of the Lagos State Chamber of Commerce, said the essence of the bill was for the domestication of the value chain of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector and not “Nigerialisation.”

“Nigeria also needs to encourage local firms to invest in research and development like its counterpart in other oil-producing countries,” Osobase said.

Vassily Barberopoulos, chairman, Manufacturers Association of Nigeria Local Content (MAN-LOC), said the new bill would help in industrialisation, which will make it easier for Nigeria to drive its exportation agenda.

In addition to proposing new requirements and regulations that would further increase and support indigenous participation in the petroleum sector, the NOGICD bill ambitiously proposes similar reforms