FG targets over 3000 jobs on fabrication yard at Snake Island

The Federal Government has said that the fabrication yard at the Snake Island has the potential to attract more than 3000 jobs after work is completed at the location. Ibe Kachikwu, Minister of State for Petroleum, made this disclosure during an inspection of the facility in Lagos.

Recall that in 2013, Kaztec Engineering Ltd, a 100 percent indigenous leader in the fabrication of drilling and production platforms and other specialized structures for the oil and gas industry, commenced construction of a new fabrication yard at Snake Island in Lagos.

The Snake Island fabrication yard is the centrepiece of Kaztec’s bold vision to develop a regional center of excellence providing engineering design, procurement, fabrication, installation and project delivery of oil and gas facilities.

According to Kachikwu, “the whole idea of coming here is to see areas where concrete engineering capabilities are being developed. We are here to see the whole work that the local content people are doing and what the federal government is doing is crystallised.

“We can produce all the oil barrels we want but if we are not attracting jobs and development, it is not going to yield any fruit. I am impressed by what I have seen. It is a huge amount of investment. There is still a long way to go but no one will keep investing money unless they get patronage.

“The whole idea is to call on all the oil companies, parastatal, and Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), to draw attention to the fact that there is a low hanging fruit here that we could all develop and create jobs. There are massive potentials here. There is the capability. We just need to give them the support that they need.”

The minister said the five year projection of local investment in Nigeria is close to N30billion to N40billion, adding that even though there are refineries and infrastructure gaps currently, there are quite a lot of potentials from the industry.

“Oil companies are cutting down on costs. To do that, you have to locally source a lot of work. Facilities like this make it cheaper to do it here. Within the range of difficulties we intertied and where the government is taking us to, we are doing the very best we can to get mileage. We are doing all we can to make sure that investments come on board.  Making the contacts attractive for investors is a good beginning,” Kachikwu added.

Emeka Offor, the chairman of Kaztec Engineering Limited who also spoke during the inspection said the fabrication yard will create a lot of opportunities for locals.

“There are a lot of fields coming up. We are able to create undeveloped assets that will match the reserve. When you have locals doing the design, construction, actual installation, the work is cheaper. You will cut down costs and it gives us faster turnaround time,” Offor said.