Lokpobiri: N15 Billion Petroleum College Ready for Commissioning Soon

•Tasks PTDF on completion of 24 outstanding contracts

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Oil), Heineken Lokpobiri, yesterday inspected the Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF) College of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Kaduna, assuring that the institution will soon become operational.

At the facility tour of the institution located along the Kaduna – Zaria Expressway way, the minister alongside top management staff of the PTDF, expressed satisfaction with the facilities on the ground in the college established in 2009.

Fifteen years after, Lokpobiri noted that the over N15 billion project will soon be put to good use, explaining that the federal government will not allow the college go decrepit.

The college which has the mandate to train senior cadre officials in the oil and gas sector, Lokpobiri said, would save the country a lot of foreign exchange from training Nigerians overseas.

The minister said: “This will save us a lot of foreign exchange. As you know the mandate of PTDF is basically to build capacity using the limited resources to train people at levels including doctorate level outside the country.

“But if this place is commissioned and put to use with collaboration with the university partnership with and then other stakeholders like NNPC and other industry players will be able to save the money to train a lot more Nigerians.

“Every year, thousands of people apply for training but the limited funds can only take a few with this arrangement. But a lot more people will be trained here and they will still get the foreign certificate that they need.”

Besides, Lokpobiri instructed PTDF to complete the remaining 24 contracts for the college which currently operates through the overseas scholarships scheme in Europe and other countries.

“I believe that the time has come for us to complete whatever outstanding projects, whatever outstanding jobs that we have here so that we will be able to use the limited resources available to government, available to PTDF, to now train a lot more people,” he said.

The minister also urged the Executive Secretary of PTDF, Ahmed Aminu who had earlier said the college secured a university licence from the National Universities Commission (NUC) to commence postgraduate studies to kick-start it.

He also charged PTDF to finalise discussions with its university partners in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world, expressing satisfaction with the project.

He encouraged the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), and all other government institutions to patronise the college.

In his address, the Executive Secretary of the PTDF, Aminu, expressed the readiness of the institute to start operations as most projects had reached the completion stage.

He added that so far 63 out of the  87 contracts awarded had been completed while 24 contracts were at various stages of completion.

According to him, the completed buildings and facilities include an international Conference Centre, Residential Buildings, a Staff School, a Students Hostel, a Library, a Management Wing and an Indoor Sports Hall.

Others, he said, include a Shopping Arcade, Perimeter fencing, a Mosque, a Chapel, Dual Carriageways, Internal Road networks/drainages, parking lots, External electrical reticulation, 33KVA substation, Extension of 33KVA power line and Independent Power Generating Plants.

Other completed projects, he added, are sewage treatment plant,  IT backbone and infrastructure boreholes, water treatment plant,  external water supply and reticulation as well as other supporting electrical and mechanical engineering services.

Aminu said the fund aimed at developing a world-class institution for the training of senior technical, management and executive cadre within the nation’s petroleum industry.