The Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari, has charged oil service operators, under the aegis of the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN), to focus more on gas development. The event was PETAN’s 2019 Annual Clients’ Appreciation and Industry Achievement Awards Dinner held in Lagos,
The Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari, has advised members of the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN) to focus more on gas development to support the Federal Government’s effort to reduce hazardous emission.
Kyari, represented by the Chief Operating Officer (COO), Gas and Power, NNPC, Mr. Yusuf Usman, at PETAN’s 2019 Clients’ Appreciation and Industry Achievement Awards held in Lagos, said the use of gas for sustainable development has become paramount in policy formation in Africa.
He said: “PETAN members should focus on gas development. We are a gas province as a country and there is need to develop gas because it is cheap, clean, environmentally friendly and affordable. We can help save the environment by substituting coal with gas, therefore, reducing emissions by half.”
The Chairman of PETAN, Mr. Bank-Anthony Okoroafor, in his remarks, assured the NNPC chief and stakeholders that PETAN was committed to ensuring a sustainable environment for business.
“PETAN remains committed to partnering with all stakeholders to create enabling environment for investment to thrive. PETAN was formed to utilise the technical know-how that abounds in the oil and gas industry by Nigerians as a springboard for economic change and technological advancement of our nation.
“This we have been pursuing since 1990. It was in 2010 that PETAN developed a 4Cs strategic plan-Capacity building,w Capitalisation, Collaboration and Consolidation, to identify and leverage capacity gaps from the Local Content Act, consolidate and expand end-to-end capacities across the value chain.”
He said PETAN would be 30 years in March 2020 and invited the audience to celebrate the milestone with PETAN in grand style.
“I will be inviting the industry to celebrate with us in working with the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) and the National Assembly to increase retained earnings from five per cent to more than 27 per cent; to increase equipment ownership, drilling rigs, cementing, simulation and wellheads, among others to more than 90 per cent,” he added.
Okoroafor noted that PETAN would work to increase (indigenous) vessel ownership from less than 10 per cent to more than 40 per cent; fabrication tonnage from nothing to about 60,000 metric tonnes; iron processing, pipe-coating, pipe-laying, operation and maintenance, FPSO integration and engineering design, among others.
He stated that this year’s award night theme: Oilfield of the Future: operational Excellence, is to re-emphasise the long-standing PETAN philosophy for the growth of the industry, which is professional excellence.
“That was why we initiated a PETAN’s Seal of Quality to sanitise our operations and certify our people in particular and the industry in general. The process has fully commenced and a number of our members have been certified in conjunction with Bureau Veritas. In the last four years, my executive team have been working on getting a befitting secretariat, conferences and meeting venue for the association and for the use of the industry and stakeholders. As you are aware, there is no functioning facility that can be used for the industry events in Port Harcourt, the oil city of Nigeria where many of us began our career.
“Graciously, the governor of Rivers State Nyesom Wike has provided us a location just by the Port Harcourt International Airport. We will be conducting the groundbreaking ceremony for the project first quarter of 2020. We urge all our partners to join us to deliver the best oil and gas museum for the country,” he said.
SOURCE: TheNation