Dennis Naku
18 November 2009
Yenagoa — SHELL Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) said over $1 billion has been spent on the Gbaran-Ubie Integrated Oil and Gas Project, with the provision of employment for 6,000 Nigerians.
The amount, according to the company's management was essentially expended within the country on labour, material and services, through main and sub-contractors, just as over 200 locals have been trained in various skills, including scaffolding, welding, pipefitting, cable pulling among others.
Disclosing this to newsmen during a media tour of the plant located in Gbaran, Yenagoa local government area, Project Manager of Gbaran-Ubie Integrated Oil and Gas Project, Mr. Graham Henley explained that 90 per cent of its workers are Nigerians, with over 1, 500 from local communities.
Henley said SPDC started work on the Project in 2005, saying, commissioning would start next year and would at its peak, produce one billion standard cubic feet of gas each day and more than 70,000 barrels of oil per day.
According to the project Manager, 50 per cent of the pressure vessels, including its largest were built in Nigeria , with about 250 sub contracts awarded to Nigerian enterprise; even as skilled and unskilled workers were recruited locally in partnership with the Bayelsa state Employment Bureau.
On the importance of the project which he describes as "one of the largest and most important projects in Nigeria, Henley said it will boost power generation as well as sustaining gas supply to NLNG, while contributing to SPDC's on-going work to reduce routine gas flaring in line with government's target," but noted that the company has also built a flare in the event of an emergency.
Mr. Henley further explained that the Gbaran-Ubie project will gather 30mm scf 1/day gas currently flared at Kolo creek and Etelebu flow stations (both in Bayelsa State), processing it for supply to Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) and local power stations.
At its completion, he said, "new pipelines will deliver some of the gas to generate power in the Niger Delta. It will supply the Bayelsa State power plant at Imiringi and a new 225MW power plant that government is building at Gbaran.
"The rest of the gas will be transported via SPDC's new Eastern Gas Gathering System (EGGS-2) pipeline to Soku. In the Eastern Niger Delta, from where it will be transported to the NLNG-Shell share 25.6 per cent at Bonny, for export. The oil it produces will be exported from SPDC's Bonny crude oil terminal," Henley said.
He expressed delight that the project has progressed significantly in the last 18 months without any recorded case of unrest from the locals, pointing out that SPDC has signed four agreements with community groups as part of its Global Memorandum of Understanding (G-MoU)- covering 44 host communities in the area.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Daily Champion. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
