Industry stakeholders united for a technical session focused on catalyzing entrepreneurship in Namibia’s energy sector at the Namibian International Energy Conference on Tuesday.
The Namibian government is in the process of launching a National Upstream Petroleum Local Content Policy, which aims to move Namibia beyond short-term taxes and royalties from oil and gas production and towards the development of forward and backward linkages that create benefits for Namibians across the entire value chain.
Energy Capital & Power is a strategic media partner of the Namibia International Energy Conference – taking place in Windhoek on April 23-25, 2024. The 6th annual conference unites industry leaders, business executives and policymakers to engage in dialogue, exchange ideas, create new partnerships and identify strategies to foster a prosperous energy industry in Namibia and beyond. For more information, please visit https://www.nieconference.com/.
“Namibia needs to set up a local content unit that acts as both an enabler and a policy mechanism. One of the main objectives of the [upcoming] local content policy is employment creation – 30,000 people are expected to be employed by the oil and gas industry in the next five years by some estimates,” said Dr. Abisai Konstantinus, Managing Director of Ndatara Surveys and Oryx Services Namibia.
Beyond policy implementation, panelists discussed strategies that Namibia’s developing oil and gas industry can employ to engage and award contracts to local service providers.
“At SEPCO, we have three enablers – the first is a long-term vision on how we want to build our national content. The second is targeting the services we want to localize – we have identified a number of high-value services both for us and for IOCs. Service quality will matter, regardless of the policy. The third is a contracting and partnership strategy,” said Yves Tchiefji, General Manager of SEPCO Industries.
“The big challenge I see with local suppliers is the need for [liquidity] and to manage their internal costs. IOCs can help support this by providing flexible payment terms. Another big challenge is the access to opportunities – not everyone has direct contact with the operators and international drilling companies,” said Illeana I Ferber, CEO and Founder of Colibri Business Development.
As Namibia approaches the development phase following a series of offshore hydrocarbon discoveries, partnership between local and international companies has emerged as a central tool to facilitate knowledge, skills and technology transfer, while ensuring projects remain economic and adhere to high global standards of the offshore oil and gas industry.
“For engineering purposes, we team up with existing local capabilities to develop both parties. As a French engineering company, we are not familiar with the ecosystem and specificities of Namibia, while the local engineering company is less familiar with international standards and offshore business,” said Olivier Benyessaad, Vice President of Business Development EMEA, Conventional & New Energies for Doris Group.
“Access to finance, technology and skilled personnel is a challenge companies are facing in our region. At SLB, it is part of our corporate blueprint to recruit, hire and develop local companies in each company where we operate, in order to bring benefits to local companies and bring value to the local economy,” said Joao David Tiago, Country Manager, Angola and Namibia for SLB.
