Mr. Uzoma Akalabu, is the Nigerian Content Manager for SAIPEM Contracting Nigeria Limited. He bagged his first degree in Accounting and MBA in Finance and Strategic Planning. He has worked in various managerial roles spanning 28 years across a range of industries with 21 years in the Oil and Gas industry both as contractor and in the upstream business. He has worked for blue chip contractors and operators including Willbros, Sirpi-Alusteel, Dubi Oil, Worley Parsons/DeltaAfrik Engineering, Seven Energy among others. He was at the core of Willbros, Worley Parsons and Seven Energy Local Content Development spanning over 15 years to support company vision, strategy and growth at various levels. He has passion for Human capacity building and import substitution, to creating a true local content for the industry. He is well experienced in business development and collaboration, and has used his diverse trainings and experience to facilitate strong partnerships and establishment of Grassroots Vendor Development Program in various Niger-Delta communities in numerous areas of operation since 2010; He is also a champion of the deepening the Nigerians can do it ‘Global’ initiative flagged off in Knightsbridge, London in 2013, an associate member of ICQC and Nigerian Energy Institute. He has pioneered many training programs at the back of various huge projects in the oil and gas industry spanning over 17 years. His quest to add value to his organization’s corporate image and human capital base has resulted in a number of initiatives to enhance economic sustainability within producing regions and maximize local benefits through partnerships among government, companies and civil society organizations. He joined Saipem in September 2018 to support the company’s vision to sustain its leadership role as service providers with complex capabilities in the Nigerian Oil and Gas industry.
In this brief interview with Majorwaves Energy Report’s Editor, Margaret Nongo-Okojokwu on the sidelines of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Opportunities Fair (NOGOF), held in Yenagoa Bayelsa State; Mr. Akalabu spoke on SAIPEM’s approach to Local Content, vendor development and support, saying SAIPEM has found  sustainability in its investment in the Nigerian people and its belief in the Nigerian Market. Excerpts.

What is SAIPEM’s approach to Local Content Development and the opportunities here?

The Approach for SAIPEM as a multinational service provider is driven by the following factors:
* Continuous presence in Nigeria in the last 51 years. Our belief in the Nigerian project and progress, understanding the Nigerian market and culture of the people is a huge factor to adding value to Nigeria.
* Continuous investment in Nigeria. In the last 3 years, we have invested over $50m in fabrication yard upgrade and with plan to deploy more resources in same direction in no distant future.
* The company currently employs over 1,900 people with over 92% as Nigerians. This is a deliberate effort to ensure that Nigerians are provided with the best opportunities in the oil and gas industry.
* An average of 100,000 man-hours is dedicated annually to training since 2002 both internally and at the back of projects in collaboration with the NCDMB.
* Saipem mentors Nigerian companies at the back of every project to improve their capability and capacity to ensure their business growth.
* Technology Transfer has remained one of Saipem hallmarks in driving Nigerian Content.
We deploy Nigerian personnel to our sister project locations across the world. Interestingly too, our Nigerian Engineers developed a specialized Confined Space Welding methods which they currently share at our various international locations. This is true local content in action.

So in this opportunities fair by the NCDMB, what have you seen so far that indicates or showcases opportunities in the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry?

What I’ve seen in the fair is a robust approach by the NCDMB. This is like really thinking outside the box. NCDMB has gone progressively unconventional which is very good for the Nigerian business environment; unconventional in the sense that there is a buy-in from the promoters and operators especially the IOCs; there is a synergy between NCDMB and the operators in the industry to showcase what their plans are in the years ahead to help Nigerian contractors and even those beyond the shores of Nigeria to plan. For a company like SAIPEM, it also helps us to plan as a multinational company on the strategies to put in place before project award. But SAIPEM has a history; one of the strengths of SAIPEM to have operated in Nigeria for over 51 years is believing in the Nigerian project and believing in the Nigerian market. It’s about planning, it is about organization, and it’s also about believing and respecting the culture of the people where you invest. I think it’s one of the competitive edge of SAIPEM and it has come to stay. For what NCDMB is doing and we think will continue to do, this will help in the continued expansion of the industry. My understanding yesterday at the auditorium was that Nigeria has in excess of 27 Billion Barrels of oil sitting in the Atlantic. So it requires technology to get this thing from the sea and you can count SAIPEM in to be part of this campaign.  

You mentioned that your approach for opportunities that you’ve seen is two pronged, can you explain that?

Yes, it is actually a multi-dimensional approach,  first of all is the IOC or the operator that wants to develop their assets who will call on the major service providers first through competitive bid, and SAIPEM falls into this category, and when all the requirements are met and there is an existing contract, SAIPEM makes a deliberate effort despite the size of its yard, and the facilities therein, and because of its consciousness to Nigeria and local content, provides sub-contracts to Nigerian vendors and suppliers of goods and services to support the project. This is a strategy that has added so much value to the system.

So it’s a multiplier effect?

Yes, SAIPEM falls in into that bracket of quantum value creation; SAIPEM is significantly in the mix of that quantum value; because I can see in this exhibition that over 50% of the companies here have rendered services to SAIPEM in one way or the other in past projects. You can see that we just sit here humbly and welcome curious investors and our vendors. So I think it’s quite fulfilling and interesting for us. That’s very interesting; I didn’t know that.   Yes, because we’ve been in the business of building capacity for so many years even before the NOGICD Act was signed into law in 2010, I think some of them are manifesting today, a whole lot of them showcasing today.

When you talk about capacity building for your vendors, what is the extra you do?

The extra we do is that when we give you a project and we see grey areas, we deploy resources like supervisors, machines to ensure that you are guided appropriately and even provide you with business strategies, so that subsequently, we don’t need to come back again once the project comes, we just provide you with the contract and you run with it, you know these things take time to mature, but we are happy today that a lot of companies that are mentored by SAIPEM are maturing fast. We are very happy about it as we look forward to more businesses to sustain the tempo of growing Nigerian businesses.

As a local content manager for SAIPEM, what do you think about the Nigerian Content Act, how has it impacted on your company and its growth?

In fact, before 2010, the directive was a hard sell for a lot of investors, but I think SAIPEM became an exception. SAIPEM believed in it since 2003 and had a local content policy. It’s a mindset which we have been using over these years until the law came into being, making it to now blossom into the compliance phase. So SAIPEM has built on this
over the last 16 years. The local content policy has given significant opportunities to Nigerians and I always tell people if you don’t come to ask, you will not see the opportunities, you need to be part of the industry, you need to attend seminars, workshops and conferences to know what is going on in the industry, you cannot stay by the sidelines and criticize that things are leaving the shores of Nigeria, things are not leaving the shores of Nigeria, Nigerians who are conscious of what is happening in the industry are taking advantage and there’s so much to do in the industry; so come and invest, identify your strength. Everybody started from somewhere and today, a lot of Nigerian companies have amazing competences, world class skills, you know we can beat our chest anywhere in the world, Nigerians are doing well and this has been driven by the local content Act. Though there is still so much to do in the years ahead.

As a Multinational Company, what is the impact of local content on deep water operations in this country?

The deep water operations like I said before now, is high technology deployment and I know that if you are conscious about your investment, if you are conscious about building capacity, you will be able to have takeaways from what is involved. What local content has brought to us is Engineering; Installation Engineering and Offshore Engineering, support vessels. There is a trajectory that has changed; there is a paradigm shift from being scared of the Atlantic to loving the Atlantic; Nigerians love the Atlantic now because there is belief that there is something there for everybody. So the deep water project is an advantage to open up the Nigerian system, especially for our Engineers, currently we have subsea Nigerian Engineers that have gone deep in excess of 150 kilometers to do installation and we are really proud of them, we are hoping that as more projects come, we would be able to train more Nigerians to take on the challenges. Nigerians like opportunities; they like to take opportunities when they see them. As we continue to build capacity, we do a lot of training and retraining; for every project, we train graduate Engineers on various competences. Electrical instrumentation, mechanical, civil, and all relevant disciplines in engineering that has a lot to do with project delivery. So as we turn them out, integration plan may not be automatic but if the project is available we just integrate them. And these guys over a period of time will key in into high technology competency. Right now we have over six Nigerian Engineers in Milan, Nigerian Engineers that are involved in the NLNG Train 7 FEED phase. And we have over 63 Nigerian Engineers working in Port Harcourt in a COREN registered office doing the same design with the support of very committed Expatriates. It is about creating the opportunity and SAIPEM management knows that the more these opportunities are created, the more opportunities for capacity building, because you need to believe that the business will be significantly driven through local content. This is a very firm belief by SAIPEM management and this makes the company stand out as a local content base in Nigeria. 

Lastly, before I let you go, let’s talk about upcoming projects, the likes of Zabazaba, Bonga South-West, NLNG Train 7, and Total’s Preowei project; is SAIPEM part of those bidding for this contract and if yes, how have you positioned yourself to benefit or to carry out these projects?

I am glad to say that SAIPEM deploys a lot of successful strategies in project execution in Nigeria. We have the strategy of conception and partnership because the idea is to ensure that from the other side we are going at the same level with the Nigerian partner and that things are done the way they ought to be done without compromising standards. We are involved in all the projects bids on the big stage and because of the competency and capability of the company, there is high level of confidence that if this opportunity is provided, we will as usual, deliver quality; so we are strategically positioned for any project no matter how challenging, we know that some of them could be quite challenging on many fronts, Bonga South West, NLNG Train 7, Preowei for Total, etc. SAIPEM has positioned itself to take on the challenge and the workforce is not in doubt and you know ironically, the workforce are predominantly Nigerians, competent engineers, the best around, we’re just waiting in the wings to say hey, go to the field. That is one of the reasons why we are here to also tell Nigerians that we are here again to build capacity for everybody, because whether you like it or not, we are front liners, we are always in the frontlines, reason being that it’s a multinational service provider and there’s the need to be very strong in management, planning and organization. So I think that’s one of the major factors that have made SAIPEM fit for future.