The Senate Committee on Local Content has pledged to intervene in the procurement processes to enable manufacturers of oil and gas pipes secured patronage of government and oil companies in line with the Local Content Act, 2010.
Chairman of the Committee, Senator Solomon Adeola Olamilekan stated this at the investigative hearing on Tuesday in Abuja, when an Abuja based pipe manufacturing firm appeared before it.
At the hearing, a manufacturing firm, SCC Nigeria Limited, manufacturers of steel pipe and coating had complained of lack of patronage by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and other multinational oil companies.
The company revealed that it has never gotten a contract in the last two years despite their qualification, but that government oil agencies preferred foreign companies.
Reacting further, Adeola said: “From your presentation, I see that you have capability and indeed growing local capacity in your operations with high standard of production and quality assurance.
“I observed that you are into production of H-SAW pipes while the industry in addition uses L-SAW and Seamless pipes. We need to confirm that the contracts you alleged were given to foreign firms were in the category of the type of coated pipes that you produce”.
He said it does not speak well of the nation that “we have a manufacturing of the magnitude of SCC Nigeria Limited being idle for two years” while various contracts were been “given to foreign firms with deleterious effects on our foreign exchange balances.”
Earlier in his presentation to the Committee, Mr. Elias Steve, a naturalized Nigeria and Chief Engineer of the company said they were engaged in pipe manufacturing for water projects and for oil and gas industry with records of execution of projects with NNPC, Mobil and other oil majors.
He said their mill was the most modern in sub -sahara Africa with production for all sizes of steel pipes up to three metres, as well as a steel coating plant, adding that they will provide all the documentations and contracts bided for that were given to foreign firms at the next sitting of the Committee.
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