We’re making a direct investment in Nigeria’s future talents – Glenn Ensor

The West Africa Offshore Conference 2016 provides opportunity for experts in the oil and gas industry to share ideas on new trends and discuss challenges in the industry. In this Interview with BusinessDay’s Isaac Anyaogu, Glenn Ensor, Managing Director PennWell International, organisers of the event, discuss the challenges and prospects for Nigeria.

Has this event met your expectations so far
It has. In its twenty year history, offshore West Africa has been around to various countries, Ghana, Cote D’ Voire, Namibia and of course Nigeria, and we made the decisions a couple of years ago that we will anchor the event here in Lagos in Nigeria. So basically, this will be our home going forward. That decision was very well indicated because we had record attendance at the event and this year we have beaten that even in the really tough environment the oil and gas been in.

You have been doing these for 20 years, what challenges have you had to overcome
One of the reasons why we decided to anchor in Lagos was that the experience of moving around all over the place meant that virtually every year you are starting again in a new place. Whereas last year and this year we have continued, we have built real relationships with institutions here, NNPC, the ministry of science and technology, the energy institutes and people and all of them are located here and all of them are continuing and building their support for the event which is really important.

And it has also allowed us to develop things like the youth program that we’ve been running here, the youth empowerment program which has been a great success, the Niger Delta people have gotten behind that and everything and they are all saying to us they want to continue their support. So by being here in Lagos, year after year on a fixed date when everybody knows that’s a real logistical help to us.

The theme of the conference that will change as time goes by but at the moment, the theme this year really is about survival, survival in tough times you know, cost reduction, making the most of the assets you have and things like that.

I observed that that the content of the sessions were deeply industry based, basically challenges of managing projects, everyone seems to be skirting around the key problems in the oil and gas sector, issues like gas flaring and environmental issues, is this deliberate?

No it’s not a deliberate decision. But I think what it is, is that a lot of the executives and people that speak here; they are themselves politically aware, what they may or may not say. There is a little bit of caution of course, they don’t want to be overly critical of the country and things like that.

To the question of gas flaring, it’s interesting because we are planning to bring a power event to Nigeria as well. We are the world’s largest organisers of power exhibitions and conferences and we want to bring that franchise here PowerGen.

I think with the gas flaring, it’s a bit chicken than egg, if you know what I mean. That gas, you need to have the generation infrastructure to actually utilise it, you know and that’s why we think that Nigeria is on the cusp of developing that.

The new power minister, Babatunde Fashola from Lagos, has great ambitions. We would like to be supportive of those going forward and bring the international power community here get people to learn how to best do investments and things like IPP’s and those sort of things, power purchase agreements, business transparency , you know, and those sort of things. So I think it’s a chicken and egg situation but of course, gas capacity could be improved and should be but you need infrastructure.

Let’s talk about the exhibitors; so far, from their comments, do you think they are meeting their expectations for this conference

The oil and gas industry is a business filled with realists, there have been ups and downs in its history and they know that so they are not expecting to be overcrowded by people with current projects and things like that at the moment.

Basically what they are using this show for is to display their capabilities and they are all long-term thinkers. They want to stay close to the market and to the movers and shakers of the market. And those people are meeting here. The quality of the attendance is good and we are getting good comments about that.

How does a conference like this benefit the society at large

If the oil and gas in Nigeria is run with best international practice and run well and also the business practices are transparent that’s got to benefit all of Nigerians. President Buhari is making a big noise about going after graft and things like that, we can’t really help that process but what we can is give businesses perspective.

Also we like to leave something here as well our youth empowerment programme; we are making a direct investment in the future talents that will take this nation forward. We have 900 applications form students this year to attend, we had to limit it to 300 for logistical reason but we will be building that out. So it’s not just a case of coming here running the event and running home, we are committed to Nigeria. We want this event to be more than just a talking shop but to move the business on.

Speaking of more than a talking shop, what does Penwell do to ensure that stakeholders’ pronouncements are followed through

That’s beyond our power What we do is to provide a platform where they can meet and discuss and exchange ideas. We also try to shape the conference to be really useful to moving things on and addressing thorny issues. It is not perfect. Sometimes you might find people really prepared to talk about the tough stuff.
Editorial integrity, our company is 105 years, privately owned but editorial integrity has been the one thing we stick to.

At the end of the event will you release a communiqué or what should be expected

We will, my marketing and editorial people will be responsible for putting that together but it will be a summary of the findings, summary of the best things discussed and may be a signal to what we want to move to next year as the issues emerge.

Let me quickly take you back to the youth empowerment programme, it is a fine initiative but what I learnt at the session yesterday is the crying need for mentorship of young people judging by their questions, is there anything PennWell is doing to support in this regard?

We ourselves as we grow, we want to be employing a couple of fresh graduates ourselves, to do some of the follow-up work from all these initiatives that we’ve got. Obviously to expect strategic thinking at that young age is a bit much but we will have tasks for them.

I honestly feel with the contacts they are making here, and the feel that they get for how business people think, I think that some of these people are going to end up employed by some of the people here. Good times or bad, people want talent and people want to secure the future so by putting them in touch, we are helping.

I remember when I was a student, you really had no idea about the day-to-day reality of what businesses are facing and we are hoping that by this practical experience they get the feel for that. Some of these employers here may have things like internship for them. As I say, we are an event organiser, there’s a limit to what we can do but we can create the environment that makes those things happen.