• PETAN: Nigeria losing experienced engineers to global markets
•FG, OGTAN unveil plans to rebuild workforce
Peter Uzoho
Stakeholders in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry have raised concerns over the depletion of technical manpower, warning that the shortage could undermine the execution of new mega deepwater projects despite renewed investments and government incentives to revive the sector.
The stakeholders, including the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN), Oil Producers Trade Section (OPTS), Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Oil and Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria (OGTAN) and industry executives, expressed the concerns at the just-concluded OGTAN Human Capacity Development Conference in Delta State.
They said years of underinvestment and prolonged inactivity in exploration and production had created critical gaps in the industry’s technical workforce that must now be urgently addressed as major projects move into execution.
After years of declining investment, particularly between 2014 and 2022, Nigeria’s upstream sector has begun to attract billions of dollars in new investments, especially in deepwater developments.
Projects currently in execution include Shell’s $5 billion Bonga North and $2 billion HI projects, TotalEnergies’ $550 million Ubeta project and ExxonMobil affiliate Esso’s recently announced $1 billion Usan infill project.
Other major deepwater projects are also progressing towards Final Investment Decisions (FIDs), including the estimated $20 billion Bonga Southwest-Aparo project, the $10.3 billion Zabazaba and Etan projects, the $8 billion Owowo development and the $750 million IMA project.
However, stakeholders said the investment rebound had exposed a new challenge: whether Nigeria has enough skilled professionals to execute the projects. The concern is particularly significant as the country seeks to increase crude oil production to 3 million barrels per day by 2030, with less than four years to meet the target.
On his part, the Chairman of PETAN and Chief Executive Officer of Geoplex Drillteq, Wole Ogunsanya, said the industry’s biggest manpower challenge was not a shortage of graduates but the loss of experienced mid-career professionals.
Represented by PETAN Publicity Secretary, Dr Joan Faluyi, Ogunsanya said Nigeria was steadily losing professionals with 10 to 15 years of experience, including drilling engineers, completions specialists, Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) supervisors and instrumentation leads, to international markets. “We develop them, and global markets recruit them,” he said.
He described the trend as one of “the sharpest operational constraints facing PETAN members,” noting that companies could secure contracts but struggle to find the specialists required to execute them.
Ogunsanya also identified a widening gap between academic qualifications and practical competence, attributing it to limited access to simulator time, supervised field experience and Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) training in Nigeria.
On emerging technologies, he said the next cycle of oil and gas contracts would increasingly be driven by digital systems, automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI).
He cited a Nigerian AI subsurface solution that won the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board’s Tech-Innovation Challenge, but said the challenge remained having enough skilled personnel to deploy such technologies safely.
“Without addressing the three gaps simultaneously, Nigeria risks ‘localising yesterday’s services while importing tomorrow’s,’” he warned.
He proposed that operators should recognise structured placements in indigenous service companies as certifiable training, while allocating part of Nigerian Content Human Capital Development funds to accredited local programmes.
Besides, the Executive Secretary of NCDMB, Felix Ogbe, acknowledged that the industry had gone through a difficult period, characterised by a prolonged wait for FIDs, and said the Board had been building capacity over the years as part of efforts to address the workforce challenge.
Represented by the Director of the Capacity Building Directorate, Abayomi Bamidele, Ogbe said the absence of new projects had constrained the growth of local content.
According to him, Nigeria had effectively lost nearly 15 years of investment, a period long enough for an entire generation of Nigerian graduates to pass through school without adequate industry training.
He said renewed investment optimism arising from the policies and executive orders of President Bola Tinubu had placed several major projects on the horizon, making workforce development an urgent priority.
On his part, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri, said the federal government was committed to supporting workforce development through the NCDMB and the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act.
He said Nigeria was emerging as an investment hub as a result of reforms by the Tinubu administration, with an unprecedented pipeline of projects heading towards FID.
However, he warned that the country’s training system must evolve to meet the demands of the new investment cycle.
“If the training system underpinning that capital is still operating on a fifty-year-old blueprint, the risk is that Nigeria’s newly de-risked capital arrives faster than its newly-promised workforce can be built,” he said.
Lokpobiri urged OGTAN to expand its focus beyond Nigeria and train professionals who could meet the needs of the wider African oil and gas industry.
“The rest of Africa is depending on human resources from Nigeria, and someone must be responsible for training that human capital,” he said.
The President of OGTAN, Chris Osarunmwense, thereafter presented an eight-pillar manifesto at the close of the conference, saying it was designed to ensure measurable outcomes rather than allow the conference to become another forum for discussions without implementation.
“Rather than turning this conference into another regular talk shop… we decided to make this different,” he said. “We are producing a set of concrete actions, a roadmap that defines how we can accelerate human capital development,” he added.
The manifesto commits industry stakeholders to skills forecasting, development of a national skills-gap pathway, trainer certification, co-investment in human capital development funding and strengthening indigenous training capacity.
Osarunmwense also announced plans to establish a quarterly Training Managers Forum for upstream companies.