Boost for Local Content as Firm Activates Valve Actuation, Assembly Facility in Port Harcourt

Peter Uzoho

Nigeria’s drive to boost in-country capacity and capability in the nation’s oil and gas industry has recorded a major success with the inauguration of PE Energy Limited’s integrated valve assembly plant, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Coming on stream two years after its foundation laying was done in 2019, the integrated solutions-rendering facility, according to the Original Engineering Manufacturer (OEM) and oil and gas services provider, would help to increase Nigeria’s oil production volumes by tracking losses and their causes digitally.

The facility, the company said, will also help the country to curtail capital flight from huge foreign exchange (FX) spending on foreign made-valves, while equally opening up opportunity for more employment for Nigerians, especially its host community.

Built by an indigenous contractor, Megastar, the multi-million dollar centre of excellence inaugurated by the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Mr. Simbi Wabote, it said, will help in tracking pipeline leak locations through an automated system.

According to the Chief Executive Officer of PE Energy Limited, Mr. Daere Akobo, the centre is a civil engineering workshop built to provide solutions and services in areas of automation, process and systems integration, valve assembling and actuation, metering systems, compressor solutions, and integrated services, amongst others.

“This place is a fulfilment of a lifetime dream. What we intend to do is to fill the gap that exists in the country.

What I mean is that the country has an integration gap in the facility side of the business.

“A number of people are doing welding work, a number of people are doing civil engineering work, but this is the heart of the final control element. What this place is to do is civil engineering work, this is the heart of final control elements.

“This centre is designed to have full integration, from the wellhead all the way to the pipeline. So, for us, what we say is that we are responsible. We have a technology that is responsible for finding the oil,” Akobo said.