The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board will start using a one-stop shop arrangement before the end of this year for reviewing and approving oil and gas projects and contracts in a bid to shorten the industry’s contracting cycle.
A statement on Friday by the NCDMB quoted the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, to have said on Thursday in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State at a meeting with top management of the board.
He explained that the collaborative approval process between the NCDMB and the NNPC would help to reduce the contract approval cycle time to six months and the cost of crude oil production to $15 per barrel.
“If you look at the cost components we are trying to drive down, from $28 per barrel, it is now $23, and we are targeting $15. We can’t achieve that if our bureaucracy is slow,” Kachikwu reportedly said.
The minister commended the NCDMB for adopting the use of Service Level Agreements with its key stakeholders, promising to ensure that other agencies within the Ministry of Petroleum Resources adopt the initiative to drive efficiency within organisations.
The NCDMB, which signed the first SLA with the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Limited in May 2017, said it was preparing to sign similar agreement with the Oil Producers Trade Section, the umbrella body of major international and indigenous operating oil companies.
According to the statement, the SLA with the NLNG provides specific timelines under which the NCDMB must conclude requested reviews and approvals. Under the SLA, the NLNG can proceed with its projects if the board fails to respond at the expiration of set timelines.
Kachikwu stated, “It takes a lot of courage for you to put a guaranty and tell people that if I don’t respond within a period, take it as approved. I will like to see this type of concept among all our parastatals. We can borrow a leaf from this.
“I did say when I came here the first time that the NCDMB is one of the few federal parastatals that have benefited consistently at the top management level in terms of leadership. The consistency is commendable over the last two or three persons who have led here. Each one complemented what the other person has done.”
The minister praised the collaboration between the NCDMB and the Department of Petroleum Resources, particularly on the development of modular refineries, which will help to address the perennial shortage of petroleum products, create jobs and minimise the scourge of illegal refining.
He tasked the board to collaborate with other relevant institutions, including Nigerian universities, some of which had developed prototypes of modular refineries.
On the NCDMB’s headquarters building project, which has got to the 17th floor, the minister described it as a profound statement to the people of Bayelsa State that “the Federal Government did not just come to take oil and walk away, but that we took oil and left something behind.”
He added that the office complex would provide a good working environment and a wonderful incentive for international and local operating companies to set up offices within the building.
He stressed that such world-class buildings and other infrastructure like airports, roads, security and recreation facilities were needed so that oil companies would find it commercially sensible to move their headquarters to the oil-producing states.
