ABUJA -As part of its contribution towards the development of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria, the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) plans to spend the sum of N17.5 billion for the upgrade of teaching facilities at the Petroleum Training Institute (PTI) in Effurun, Delta State.
The Executive Secretary of PTDF, Alhaji Kabir Mohammed disclosed this on a radio Nigeria network phone in programme, “Radio Link”. He indicated interest in expanding the programmes of the Fund to accommodate other courses in its scholarship progamme. According to the executive secretary, the intervention programme embarked upon by the Fund at the Institute is to upgrade it to international standard so that graduates from the Institute can compete with their counterparts in the world.
The PTDF boss said that oil and gas has been in existence for the past 50 years and lamented that the industry has been dominated by foreigners, adding that a survey conducted by the Federal Government in 2004 showed that Nigeria depends on expatriates to execute minor jobs in the oil and gas industry such as welding, fabrication and even engineering design.
Explaining further, Alhaji Mohammed disclosed it was based on that survey that the Federal Government has decided to come up with a policy to achieve local content in oil and gas by the Year 2020. “Government came up with a policy to attend local content in oil industry by 2020”, he emphasised. The PTDF boss disclosed that three areas of focus in attaining the local content in the industry are: welding; fabrication and engineering design.
To do that, he revealed that PTDF has entered into partnership with the Nigerian Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to train the required manpower in the industry. “Under the programme, we are supposed to train 2,600 in engineering design and a total of 2,000 have been trained. The process of training others are on-going”, he stated.
According to him, “The idea is to enable Nigerians participate in the execution of oil and gas projects, to get the required manpower that will participate in the industry. Nigeria content directive issued by the Federal Government specified what the industry is going to do in every aspect of operations”.
On the mandate of the PTDF, the executive secretary said the Fund was established to provide scholarship either wholly or partially in universities, colleges, institutions and petroleum undertakings in Nigeria or abroad. “It is also to support such training or education as mentioned above and also to make suitable endowment scholarship to Nigerian universities and colleges”.
The PTDF boss said, it is also the mandate of the Fund to make books available for the training of Nigerians in oil and gas sector. The Fund is also mandated “To sponsor regular visits to refineries and for arranging any necessary attachments in establishments connected with the development of the oil and gas sector in Nigeria”.
On how far he has gone in carrying out the mandate of the PTDF, the executive secretary stated that the Fund has trained up to 1,127 candidates both in Master and Doctoral degrees since 2002 when the programme started. He explained that 596 candidates were trained for Masters and 86 candidates were trained for Doctoral degree, adding that the beneficiaries were trained in 10 topmost universities in England.
Mohammed explained that the scholarship was increased to 120 chances for Masters degree and 25 for Doctoral degree in 2007. According to him, the PTDF boss disclosed that the programme was later increased to 250 slots for Masters degree and 40 chances for Doctoral degree.
“Because the Nigerian universities do not have the equipment to train students at home, the Fund decided to send people abroad, basically in United Kingdom for the training. They are trained in the 10 topmost universities in UK”, he stated.
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