Nigerian Content Boss Named Vanguard Newspaper Regulator Of The Year

By John Ikani

The Executive Secretary of Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Engr. Simbi Wabote has been named Vanguard Newspaper Regulator of The Year 2021.

Engr. Wabote bagged the recognition – instituted by the Nigerian based newspaper independent of political control – for his “doggedness in delivering local content goals.”

The newspaper in its formal announcement of Engr. Wabote’s selection and suitability for the recognition said: “Under his watch, NCDMB catalysed the successful integration of one of the largest Floating Production Storage and Offloading, FPSO, in-country at the SHIMCI yard in the LADOL Free Trade Zone and facilitated in-country integration of six modules on the Egina FPSO, the first time in the entire Gulf of Guinea.

It noted that the ES “facilitated speedy approvals for the US$12bn NLNG Train 7 project and the signing of the contract in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, to create 12,000 jobs and domicile 55 percent of the project in-country.”

The NCDMB boss was also lauded for “introducing key signature events into the oil and gas industry calendar such as the bi-annual Nigerian Oil and Gas Opportunity Fair, NOGOF, and the Nigerian Research and Development Fair, R&D Fair, to showcase the oil industry’s opportunities for investment and galvanise research capabilities respectively.”

While commending Engr Wabote for “using the annual Practical Nigeria Content conference and exhibition to set the agenda for the industry,” the newspaper also chronicled how he “championed NCDMB’s equity investment in four modular refineries – Waltersmith’s 5000 barrels per day facility, Azikel Petroleum’s 12,000barrels per day Hydroskimming Modular refinery Atlantic International Refinery’s 2000 barrels plants and Duport Midstream’s 2,500bpd modular refinery.”

The newspaper went on to note that the ES “has spearheaded other strategic capacity development initiatives in the hydrocarbon value-chain in line with the Board’s vision to serve as a catalyst for the industrialisation of the Nigerian oil and gas sector.

It listed some of the initiatives to “include the Board’s investment in Brass Fertiliser, NCDMB Gas Hub at Polaku and Rungas’ composite gas cylinder manufacturing facility.

Engr Wabote’s relentless championing of the board’s enterprise development programmes was also taken into recognition “notably the Project 100, Nigerian Oil and Gas Technology, NOGTECH, Hackathon and the Science and Technology Innovation Challenge, STIC.”

In case you missed it

Engr. Wabote was appointed as the Executive Secretary of the NCDMB by President Muhammadu Buhari on September 29, 2016.

Due to his excellent performance during the first tenure, he was reappointed for a second term by the President on September 25, 2020.

The NCDMB was established in 2010 by the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act, with a core mandate to manage and grow Nigeria’s local content capacity. So far, it has lived up to its mandate.

Heritage Times had earlier chronicled NCDMB’s giant strides in 2021 under the transformational leadership of Engr. Wabote has been relentless at initiating, regulating and catalysing new opportunities that engender value-adding activities in-country and on the African continent at large.