Nigeria Naval Base
By Ejiofor Alike
The Nigerian Navy has stated that with the partial privatisation of the Navy Dockyard in Lagos, the facility is committed to providing support to the maritime industry and manpower development in the oil and gas sector, in line with the aspiration of the Federal Government.
Admiral Superintendent of the Dockyard, Rear Admiral SA Mohammed, made this commitment on the recent sail-away ceremony of the OYOT Wellhead platform built for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)/Mobil Producing Nigeria (MPN) joint venture.
Mohammed, who noted that the platform was a product of synergy between the dockyard and the maritime industry, also stated that the dockyard is the premier logistics facility of the Nigerian Navy.
He recalled that Dorman Long Engineering had approached the Nigerian Navy for lease of space at the dockyard for the building of the facility, adding that the completion of the platform was a great achievement by Dorman Long, with the active support by the Nigerian Navy.
“It is a product of dedication by all the stakeholders. I thank the ExxonMobil and the NNPC for their faith in local companies,” he said.
Also speaking, the Flag Officer Commanding (FOC) Western Naval Command, Rear Admiral Ameen Ikioda, who represented the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ola Said Ibrahim, stated that as engineering and logistics arm of the navy, the yard has provided logistics, not only to the Nigerian Navy but the entire maritime industry.
“From a modest beginning in 2001, the Nigerian Naval Dockyard/Dorman Long joint venture has grown significantly. The project is a testimony of the capability of the Nigerian Naval Dockyard facilities,” he said.
Earlier in his address, the Executive Vice Chairman of Dorman Long Engineering Limited, Mr. Chukwuma Henry Okolo, urged the Federal Government to expand the frontiers of the local content policy to also cover strategic sectors such as power, and telecommunication infrastructure where over $20billion is expended yearly outside the shores of the country.
He noted that the feat achieved by Dorman Long in the fabrication of the oil facility platform was as a result of the government’s local content policy which has empowered Nigerian companies to participate in local fabrication of mega facilities used in the oil and gas sector.
‘’Looking into the future, Dorman Long believes that Nigeria presents the opportunity to develop engineering fabrication capability with robust projects in the oil and gas, power and infrastructure sectors’’, he said.
According to him, what was urgently needed was to fast-track critical drivers for Nigeria’s industrial development.
He however, emphasised the urgent need for the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) to be finalised and passed by the National Assembly as a matter of national development emergency.
According to him, mega size oil and gas projects such as Egina, Brass LNG, Nigeria LNG Train 7, Olokola LNG, Bonga South-west amongst others which are currently undergoing Front End Engineering Design (FEED) and contracting processes should be accelerated and translated to reality.
He pointed out that these would make the required contribution to employment creation and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth.
Okolo stated that the OYOT platform would be installed at the NNPC/MPN Satellite Field located offshore Nigeria in Oil Mining Leases (OMLs) 68 and 70.
He added that the water depth in the area where the OYOT Wellhead platform would be located is approximately 60 feet, stressing that the platform was a 1,500 tonnes, 16 slot, 4 pile unmanned platform tied to Usari as the host platform with a peak daily production of 15,000 barrels per day oil and natural gas liquid when operational.
“The field-back from the industry is that the project is a world class product in which more than two million Lost Time Incidents (LTI) free Man-Hours have been spent’’ he said.
“Dorman Long, since its establishment in 1949, has pioneered national capacity in a comprehensive range of industries covering fabrication, hot-dip galvanising, operation and maintenance and supply chain services,” he said, adding that the Niger Bridge at Asaba-Onitsha was one of the company’s early flag ship project completed in the 1960s.