•Local content equity fund to be unveiled in December
The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has confirmed that Tamrose Limited, an indigenous marine logistics and offshore support company, has fully liquidated the $10 million Nigerian Content Intervention (NCI) fund it acquired in 2019 without missing a single repayment schedule.
From 2019 to 2025, Tamrose, a company that took a bet on the marine logistics business 15 years ago with a solo vessel, said it leveraged the fund to scale up its operational capacity by about 300 per cent.
Within the period, its vessel fleet rose from four to 15 while staff size leapt from 50 to well over 200, just as it expanded from Nigeria to Angola with an eye on dominating the vast African market.
With the repayment, the NCDMB, which manages the fund, said the company has joined 20 others who have fulfilled their obligations.
But Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, at Tamrose’s ‘Celebration of Growth and Impact’, warned that the government would use “instrumentalities of the law” against 49 others who are yet to honour their obligation in line with the condition of the facilities.
The minister was not specific on the government’s plan to get the defaulters to honour their obligations. But he warned that the fund was never free, but was intended to develop globally competitive indigenous firms.
He insisted that the Nigerian oil and gas sector could not be successful if there were no strong logistics companies like Tamrose.
Lokpobiri hailed Tamrose for rising to the occasion and growing on the path of integrity to become the Nigerian pride in the logistics space and for making the facility granted to it to scale up for others to borrow.
According to him, the Federal Government is committed to supporting local firms but would shun the temptation to create mere middlemen under the guise of local content development.
Tamrose, he said, is shining light on the intention of the current administration, which has helped to expand the NCDMB through new investments attracted in the past two and a half years.
The Executive Chairman of Tamrose, Ambrose Ovbiebo, said the company’s success story has demonstrated what Nigeria could achieve with the Nigerian Cabotage Vessel Financing Fund (CVFF), estimated at $360 million if disbursed. Now, he said, is the time to unleash the potential of the fund.
The story of Tamrose, he said, is one of tenacity, integrity, focus and sacrifice. Apart from its operational capacity expansion, he said, the NCI facility has helped the company to train over 100 young professionals who can compete anywhere across the globe.
Manpower, he argued, is a missing link in the effort to turn the corner in local capacity. The challenge, the marine logistics expert said, the company is tackling from scratch with its cadet academy.
“We have proved the indigenous service providers can dominate the oil and gas industry… It is not all about loan repayment but more about what is possible,” he insisted.
The Executive Secretary of the NCDMB, Felix Ogbe, commended the company’s commitment to excellence, saying its success demonstrated what is possible when opportunity, professionalism and dedication meet funding opportunity.
Ogbe, who was represented by a general manager at the board, Esueme Dan Kikile, disclosed that 20 other companies had similarly repaid the facilities, which were granted at a single-digit interest rate.
He said the institution has concluded an arrangement to unveil the Nigerian Content Equity (NCE) fund at the Practical Nigerian Content Forum (PNC) to be held in Bayelsa from December 1 to 4 as part of an effort to stimulate the next phase of growth of indigenous companies.
