LeeGroup deepens local content as it opens $100M fabrication plant in Warri
Since the introduction of local content in the nation’s oil and gas industry, a number of indigenous oil and gas services firms are expanding their coasts of service deliveries to tap into the prevailing drive to grow local content.
Business Hilights recalls that under the local content scheme, government encourages indigenous companies in the oil and gas sector to provide services to the big players in the sector and benefit from its financial resources.
The latest in the sector is Lee Engineering and Construction Company, one of Nigeria’s indigenous oil serving companies which has established a $100 million fabrication plant in Warri, Delta State to meet the fabrication needs of multinational companies in the oil and gas sector.
Chairman and Managing Director of the company, Chief Lemon Ikpea said “The vision of the new fabrication plant is to build an indigenous world-class manufacturing and fabrication workshop that will serve the industrial needs of Nigeria and Africa, especially in the oil and gas, and power sector.”
In an interview, he disclosed that his group set up the fabrication plant in order to contribute to the oil and gas sector and also to tap into the local content drive of the Federal Government.
According to him, the newly completed oil and gas production plant is dedicated to produce high pressure vessels, heat exchangers, gas-heat exchangers, water bath heaters, glycol, skits, scrubbers, process modules, tanks and flare systems as well as carry out maintenance on existing pressure/process vessels and its components
He added that “If you look around the oil and gas sector, most production are done outside the shores of this country and if we fold our hands and wait for government’s foreign friends and partners to transfer technology to this country, I don’t see that happening, considering the market situation. If they transfer technology to you, the question to ask will be, who will be buying from them? So they will be reluctant to do that. Our mission is to produce high quality, reliable and durable products through competent workforce and best technology within regulatory laws. We intend to change the existing orientation of clients procuring similar components abroad with scarce hard currency and, in the process, boost national economy and reduce procurement lead time”.
He disclosed that “we decided to key into the local content policy of government, which was enacted into law in 2010. We want government to give more power to the Nigerian Local Content Management Board to ensure that Nigerians fully participate in any investment, expansion and Greenfields to be established in many parts of this country. It is from there that our people will learn, build capacity, learn on the job, and also the government will save half of what is meant to originally go to foreign companies”.
