Akin Adetunji was one of the most influential of the public servants to run the investment arm of the Nigerian state hydrocarbon company NNPC.
When he was retired, in a comprehensive sweep in 2001, one publication compared his ouster as “moving the rock of Gibraltar”. Some of his earstwhile junior collegues still talk of the years he spent as the key government interface with the six multinationals who deliver 90+% of the crude oil in Africa’s largest oil producing country.
In his office in Lagos, directly facing the south Atlantic, where he oversees Terra Energy Nigeria Limited, an engineering service company, he shared his insight into the industry with Africa Oil + Gas Report ....www.africaoilgasreport.com

I was exposed to major responsibilities very early in my career. Graduating in 1968 and concluding postgraduate in Imperial College, 1969-1970, I could count those of us who were engineers in the industry then. It coincided with the early beginnings of the growth of the industry itself.
I started meeting one on one with CEOs of those companies. We developed mutual respect for each other, not fear. The letters that some of them wrote me, at the end of my tenure, didn’t suggest that we were adversaries. They were cheering correspondences.
The hierarchy of the oil industry is such that where even the CEOs of IOCs feel that, at your level, your instruction is not in their interest, they have the option of going higher.
And although it may not be polite way of correcting you, you will get the message. One needs to be cautious, to be very balanced and take well informed decisions. The industry is very sensitive, highly capital intensive and one mistake of a decision could lead to millions of dollar loss.
How’s Life On The Outside?
I opted to venture into an area which I helped to initiate-local content. Development of engineering capacity. 10 years ago, we woke up to the realization that oil was a finite resource and that there must be some remaining benefits to the nation in terms of capacity. Romania is no longer producing oil but the amount of technology that they export, show how much they’ve benefited in growing the technology of oil.
In June 2001, I initiated the first stakeholders workshop in Abuja that clearly brought local content into attention. I wanted to find a way to practicalise that. I set this place up with a friend. We have local engineers we are growing.
It’s been interesting to me. Going back to interact with people who were my juniors has been easy. Some of those folks ask me to phone them to come rather than come myself and I tell them: I know the level of your responsibility. I would rather come. I am now able to see the problems of the contractor. In my little feedback to my junior colleagues still in the service, I let them know about the situation on ground and what kind of interventions they can make to manage the local content policy.
The Job, Here And Now.
The strategy of our activity is to have strategic alliance with technical partners. We provide engineering support and when we have senior engineers that can work on the project we insist
Rarely today can you find an indigenous engineering company that can do FEED. This is a very conceptual engineering work. It is the thinking through stage of the project; the FEED contractor comes up with the very first idea of what it would take to achieve the project. You want to build LNG and you want someone to think it through? That’s FEED. Outline engineering which enables the projct owner to now call for a bid. For you to win that kind of engineering work, you need a highly skilled technical partner. But facility expansion, brownfield engineering, that we can comfortably handle.
But isn’t FEED what NETCO is well known for?
NETCO is more of a project engineering expert than a FEED company. It is after FEED that you go for detailed engineering. That’s what NETCO (the engineering service arm of NNPC) is good at. It’s the need for FEED engineering companies from overseas that provide the reason for having the Foster Wheelers, the Betchels around.
When you talk about strategic partners, people may interpret you as being just a trading post agent

In any of the jobs we do, we have disciplines-electrical/electronics, structural, etc. In each team or discipline, you have a lead engineer, who has packed in years of engineering experience in that field.
Now, our (Nigerian) engineers don’t have that much experience, because of lack of work. As much engineering work wasn’t being done in Nigeria, the country is not teeming with homegrown oilfield engineering expertise. The small pool we have is always being poached.

But companies from outside always have engineers that have experience, that they can pool from anywhere in the world. And since our clients want top quality we must provide it. It costs us more when we don’t have engineers in our group to do some particular work for a client.

That part of the technical arrangement we will provide to the client at cost plus-which means that our margin will be smaller.
Now, as you keep having having projects, some of those who have been junior engineers in one project earn enough experience to become lead in another project. But there are not always projects. The representative of the client is always part of the team and he wants to make sure these things are being carried out as part of local content policy.
Jobs are frozen
It’s an industry problem. I would not blame the government. I would not blame the industry. It’s a problem that is beyond both government and the IOCs. A lot of damage has been done to the capacity by the shut down of terminals. Some wells, if you shut them down, will take months to get them flowing again. When this happens consistently, the industry goes comatose.
Unless a lot of effort is put into reactivating the various activities, we cannot see an immediate turn around without a very strategic move, with out serious effort to actually re-invigorate the industry, I am yet to see how the several arrangements being pursued will work out....................to be continued in www.africaoilgasreport.com, check it out