…Line pipe opportunities in Africa highlighted include the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline, African Renaissance Pipeline and Transmed Gas Pipeline
MON MARCH 10 2025-theGBJournal| The Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Engr. Felix Omatsola Ogbe, has described line pipes as “a major driver in oil and gas industry operations,” adding, “without line pipes you cannot evacuate products.”
He said the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act, 2010, envisages 100 per cent in-country manufacture of line pipes (seamless and welded pipes) and that the Board, in conjunction with the OPTS, had agreed on an initiative in 2011 to work towards attainment of that target.
The NCDMB boss noted that a lot still has to be done and that status reports of projects on line pipes would have to be presented and discussed at the workshop so as to determine appropriate measures by all stakeholders to intensify efforts to overcome teething problems if any.
The “Stakeholders Workshop on Manufacturing of Line Pipes in Nigeria: Processes, Challenges, and Opportunities,” held at the Nigerian Content Tower (NCT), Yenagoa, where much-needed consensus among critical oil and gas industry stakeholders and manufacturers met to find ways to ramp up in-country production and utilisation of line pipes in oil and gas operations, as part of the strategy to deepen local content, and conserve foreign exchange and create jobs.
The Oil Producers Trade Section (OPTS), comprising all international oil companies, and their indigenous counterparts under the aegis of the Independent Petroleum Producers Group (IPPG) held high level discussions with the leading pipe manufacturing companies and pipe coaters as well as the NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services (NUIMS) at the instance of the NCDMB to take stock of progress made since 2011.
Engr. Ogbe, represented by the Director of Monitoring and Evaluation, Alhaji Abdulmalik Halilu, disclosed that in realization of the potential of in-country manufacture of line pipes for retention of significant revenue and job creation, the Board had introduced different policies and remains determined to work with industry players for meaningful progress.
In his own remarks, the Director, Capacity Building, NCDMB, Dr. Ama Ikuru, explained that the Board and the entire oil and gas industry are focused on Made-in-Nigeria line pipes, because it is “the key to Nigeria’s industrial development and a critical requirement of the NOGICD Act, 2010, and the Presidential Executive Order on Local Content.”
He noted that Made-in-Nigeria line pipes are a “reputation driver for the NOGICD Act” and are “central to the attainment of the 70 per cent objective of NCDMB’s [Nigerian Content] 10-Year Strategic Road Map.” In addition, the initiative would reduce costs and eliminate mark-up by middlemen.
Dr. Ikuru pointed out that there are major oil discoveries across Africa as well as opportunities in Nigeria and other parts of the continent, supported by the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA).
Line pipe opportunities in Africa highlighted include the Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline, African Renaissance Pipeline and Transmed Gas Pipeline.
On interventions by the NCDMB toward establishment of pipe mills in the country, he said the Board, among other things, introduced the Equipment Component Manufacturing Initiative (ECMI) and issued guidelines on it, which “birthed issuance of the Nigerian Content Equipment Certificate (NCEC).”
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