One of the biggest oil and gas servicing companies in Africa, Oilserv Nigeria Limited, has urged International Oil Companies (IOCs) operating in Africa to improve on the opportunities offered to them especially within the African space.
The company which has put in over 30 years in the sector has been identified by industry players as rich in capacity and has been the major driver of oil and gas based construction and engineering since inception, and has continued to expand in scope and application all through Nigeria.
Speaking in a session, the Group Chief Executive Officer of Oilserv Group, Emeka Okwuosa, who was represented by Chief of Staff of the Company, Mr. Cephalus Wariri, at the ongoing Intra-African Trade Fair(IATF25), explained that need has arisen based on the ability of the companies to have successfully carried out complex and standard engineering contracts within Nigeria and other countries. They are of the opinion that they have over some time leveraged the benefits of working with Afreximbank for some massive transformation, which offered them both skill and capacity.
According to the executives of the company which has handle huge Turn-Key projects and is currently driving Africa’s biggest gas project and has dominated the area and has developed flow stations which have made it possible to bring service and products through collaboration with Nigeria, NNPCL across areas of need. They have also taken their services to countries like Benin, Ghana, Senegal and other Pan-African economies.
As major providers of major oil and gas sector infrastructure plroviider, they are of the position that they have all it takes to offer the oil companies quality work to drive their needs at the speed such projects were needed. At moment, the approach of the company is extend its services to more companies as it has really conquered the Nigerian5 industry and ready to offer their services to more countries in the continent. “All oil companies need our infrastructure to progress. We are ready to provide all the facilities as infrastructure to clients.
They have also noted that finance has been a major deal affecting projects, indicating that local banks cannot are not capable of helping much which brings them back multilaterals, most of the time Afreximbank.
“As an intra-African construction company,we conceived Nigeria’s most ambitious oil and gas pipeline project called AKK in 2014 and have been doing excellently with it inspite of some unforeseen natural challenges which are also under control.”
They indicated that apart from the challenges of difficult financial presence to complement the Afreximbank support, there are issues of insecurity, problems of ease of doing business , currency instability issues. All these come into conflict with our focus which is a stable African economy. Because we have benefited from Afreximbank collaborations we have been able to find our way into several activities that needed much financing. This has enabled us make various contacts to participate in the installation of infrastructure within and across certain economies in Africa , he said.
They also feel that the bank must look into visa logistics and travel because it impacts on time applications because time is money. Also, they are worried about the lack of uniformity within the African countries.
