Shell Awarded $2.4b Contracts to Indigenous Firms In 2012

Shell Nigeria has said it awarded a total contract sum of $2.4 billion to Nigerian companies in 2012.

This figure according to the Managing Director SNEPCo, Chike Onyejekwe was $1 billion more than the sum of contracts awarded by the company in 2011.

Onyejekwe made the disclosure while speaking at an investment summit for Nigerian and British companies jointly hosted by Shell and the United Kingdom Trade & Investment (UKTI) recently in Lagos.

While restating Shell’s commitment to further develop the local content policy, he said “last year, Shell companies inNigeria awarded contracts worth $2.4 billion to Nigerian companies, one billion dollar more than the amount in 2011. Local content is good forNigeria and for the business and we’re determined to raise the game.”

About 100 Nigerian and British companies attended the summit which aimed at forging partnerships among businesses in the two countries in areas of Engineering Procurement Installation Commissioning (EPIC) contracts, manufacturing, fabrication and general oil and gas services.

N1 billion Contract scandal hits Petroleum Ministry

House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream), has ordered the Minister of Petroleum Resources and the contractor to appear before it to explain the circumstances surrounding the payment of over N1.1 billion for a contract that was not performed. The committee, led by Hon Ajibola Muraina, decided to summon the minister and the contractor when it became obvious that a vessel, which had not been supplied to Petroleum Training Institute, PTI, Effurun, near Warri, Delta State, three years after it was supposed to have been delivered, had allegedly attracted a demurrage of over N600 million at $2,000 per day.

The Auditor-General of the Federation, in a report, had recommended that the contractor should refund the money to the federal government with interest.

Hon. Muraina said the Acting Principal/Chief Executive of PTI, Mrs. Nnenna Dennar, informed the committee that the dive support sea-going vessel was in the custody of the Nigerian Embassy at Singapore, but information at the disposal of the National Assembly indicated that the vessel might not even be in existence and the facts of its non-existence had to be established.

Members of the House committee, who were on an oversight function, were taken aback when they were told that another N900 million was required to convert the vessel to a dive-support ship , almost the equivalent of what was used to purchase the vessel itself.