The Federal Government has launched a business intervention Project called “Project 100” that would be of benefit to no fewer than 60 indigenous oil and gas companies in the country.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, at the commissioning of the project in Abuja on Thursday said its aim was to boost the local companies.
He said that the project would nurture indigenous oil servicing companies and develop them into next generation large-scale Nigeria oil and gas companies.
According to him, the project will be managed by the Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board (NCDMB).
He added that the companies would be nurtured through structured capacity building and policy intervention.
“Government is promoting Project 100 as an oil and gas industry intervention to identify, recognise and nurture wholly-owned indigenous oil and gas service providers into large scale players that will create high impact in the economy,’’ he said.
According to him, such impact will be in terms of job creation, technology development, wealth creation and other local content indicators.
“The Federal Government will support the firms in the areas where they need critical government support, through the provision of support in terms of granting them import waivers among many other incentives.
“Project 100 is founded on the logic that Nigerians have the capacity to lead this industry; to build the best FPSOs, to build the best platforms, to build the power plants to run the best plants and communication companies.
“There is nowhere in the world where people go through the kind of difficulties they go through in Nigeria.
“The expectations are that because I believe so much in you and you believe so much in yourself, we are working together as nation and people, we can deliver the sort of results that are enunciated here today and create work.’’
The Minister advised beneficiaries to fight to be the best and strive to get the best contracts in the industry as it was their entitlement.
“It is not a privilege; it is not a favour, it is your right. Deliver the best quality work results so that those who gave you the opportunity would be able to go home and feel very happy.
“Even if all we do is create 10 Korean-sized firms, we would have done a lot.” he said.
