Local Content Law has engendered joint ventures — RigWorld MD

The country’s Local Content and Local Participation in Petroleum Activities Regulation, 2013 (L.I. 2204) has lived up to its billing so far, as it has helped local companies to participate actively in the oil and gas industry.

The Managing Director of indigenous upstream logistics company, RigWorld International Services Limited, Mr Kofi Amoa-Abban, said the law, even in its teething stages, had engendered partnerships and joint ventures which had facilitated the transfer of skills to Ghanaians and local companies.

That, he said, had impacted positively on increasing the number of Ghanaians participating directly in the fledgling upstream industry.

“When it comes to the L.I., it has helped the local companies to form joint ventures and partnerships with foreign companies to have skills transfer from them and to build capacity by learning from them to build systems, processes and procedures,” he told the Daily Graphic in an exclusive interview.

Mr Amoa-Abban commended the upstream industry regulator, the Petroleum Commission, for a good job done.

“The Petroleum Commission has really done a very good job in this regard. They didn’t just pass the law, but you can see some element of monitoring to ensure that local companies and foreign companies comply with the law,” he stated.

RigWorld’s rapid growth

Incorporated in January 2011, the RigWorld International has grown from supplier of labour to oil production companies to a total logistics company, providing diverse services, including procurement, catering, crew management, drilling to the upstream industry.

The RigWorld Group, started by Mr Amoa-Abban when he was just under 30 years, has joint venture partnerships with over five foreign companies and together has about 14 subsidiaries within the group.

“We have been the first company to form a joint venture with a drilling company in Ghana, Maersk Drilling, to become Maersk Rigworld Ghana Ltd which is involved in developing the Offshore Cape Three Points project.”

The company has also entered into many other joint ventures in different aspects of the oil and gas logistics value chain.

The success factors

While he attributes the success of the company to the hand of God, Mr Amoa-Abban said the Local Content law which provides for all companies operating in the country to have a local joint venture partner was a major boost to how grounded the company had become.

Satisfying provisions under the law also means that the country should have a critical mass of skills set available for deployment as and when required. While some countries have criticised the law, some foreign companies have bemoaned the lack of skills set.

But the managing director of RigWorld said the industry had leapt from the days of a few direct Ghanaian participation in the industry, especially in higher positions, to the current state where many Ghanaians worked directly on the rigs and occupied some high ranks within the industry.

“For instance, with our drilling company, we have been able to fast-track so many people. Currently, we have a subsea engineer trainee, we’ve assistant drillers and others in higher positions as crane operators. So in terms of capacity building, we’ve come far but we are not there yet,” he stated.

He said RigWorld was now trying to practice localisation by building the capacity of its employees and forming partnerships with other local companies such as catering to serve the industry.

Humble beginnings

Trained in Ghana and Norway, Mr Amoa-Abban returned to the country in August 2010 and work as a roustabout on Atwood Hunter, a manual semi-submersible rig, and later as roughneck.

It was while working there that he realised how young the industry was and how badly it needed service companies. He, therefore, decided to start a logistics company to fill the void.

“I saw it to be like a challenge. So RigWorld was incorporated around January 2011. Maintaining consistency and focus about what I wanted to do, I was able to meet the GNPC’s criteria to operate as an upstream company,” he said.

He admits it was not so rosy at the beginning since the company did not land any major contract in its first year.

Kofi and his team had to dig deep and draw on their experience and what they could do. Armed with academic and practical knowledge about the upstream oil and gas industry, he took to running training courses for young Ghanaians who had interest in the emerging industry.

“We had a breakthrough when Sea Drill came to Ghana which asked our company to provide logistics services to them. The deal fell through initially after they had seen our humble office and thought we didn’t have the capacity,” Mr Abban said.

However, after he persisted, Sea Drill decided to give them a try to supply just a single labour, but that was to mark a major breakthrough for the company.

Grab your copy of the next edition of the Graphic Business on Tuesday to read more about this Ghanaian success story.