Wholesome economic development requires focus on local production –

Mario Portoluppi, Managing Director, Nivafer Steel Construction Company Limited
Nivafer Steel Construction Company Limited, an indigenous company established in 1977 to provide purely general steel fabrication services, had little or no involvement in the Oil and Gas Sector of the Nigerian economy, at the inception.

Nivafer Steel Construction Company Limited, an indigenous company established in 1977 to provide purely general steel fabrication services, had little or no involvement in the Oil and Gas Sector of the Nigerian economy, at the inception.
However, progressive application of industry best practices, coupled with the adoption of innovative steel industry technology with a resultant monumental capacity jump, led to Nivafer’s ranking as one of the major players in high precision steel engineering and construction operations.

Today, the company operates with the most modern methods in Health, Safety and Environment Assurance, as well as, Quality Control management to ultimately realize the capacity to deliver creative technology in steel.

As an ISO 900: 2008 certified company, Nivafer’s construction works are carried out with strict adherence to applicable international standards such as API, BS, ASME, by employing the expertise of highly experienced workforce which include expert welding operators and professional quality control specialists whose qualifications also meet relevant codes.
Nivafer has taken advantage of the local content policy by installing state of the art fabrication equipment which include: Controlled Numeric Cutting machines for plates and steel profiles, as well, subarc machines for welding and automatic blasting rooms. This has increased efficiency as the company can produce and load-out up to 160 tons of fabricated structures every month, in addition to the production of pressure vessels with ASME stamp.

Recently, Nivafer registered at Ladol Free Zone. This has enabled the company to fully integrate very bulky and heavy structures and load-out. All this are aimed at positioning the company to benefit from the local content policy of the federal government and the responsibility of the NCDMB is to work with the industry to drive the establishment of these manufacturing facilities.

In his assessment as an indigenous stakeholder, Mario Portaluppi, Managing Director, Nivafer Steel Construction Company Limited, described the impact of the Local Content Law in the last five years, in terms of its implementation and benefits as being so far successful in galvanizing Nigerian companies to participate in the oil and gas sector of the economy. He said verifiable data shows that the Nigerian companies now control over 35% of upstream business activities in Nigeria.

He noted that this is a significant bump from less than 10% in 2010 as it has increased employment opportunities while enhancing the technical knowhow of the Nigerian technicians and engineers. The multiplier effects are clearly visible in the number of Nigerian companies now participating in both the upstream and downstream sectors of the oil and gas industry.