SAIPEC Pushes Local Content - special interview with speaker Jessica Kyeyune

The Sub Saharan Africa International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (SAIPEC) is back and bigger than ever. The event will take place from 13-15 February 2024 at the Eko Convention Center in Lagos, Nigeria.

The Sub Saharan Africa International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (SAIPEC) is back and bigger than ever. The event will take place from 13-15 February 2024 at the Eko Convention Center in Lagos, Nigeria.

The Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN) is hosting the event in partnership with the Nigerian Content Development & Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and NNPC Limited.

The theme for the event is The Next Steps: Accelerating African Content, and the conference will highlight billions of dollars of project opportunities across Africa. Local content helps create or strengthen various industries, which in turn helps grow regional economic development, boost budget revenue dynamics and employment and uplift local communities.

National Content Expert from the Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC), Jessica Kyeyune, is one of the speakers at the event. Kyeyune, an award-winning expert on local content, warns that oil can easily be extracted and removed from a country without benefiting the people.

She says, “The purpose of national content is to ensure that economies benefit in other areas like employment and contracting, so more value is retained in-country. Without a focus on local content, goods and services that can be supplied in-country by citizens can be given to foreign entities leading to capital outflow – depriving national capacity. Local content requirements ensure that all goods and services available locally are supplied by nationals, so local capacity is developed to carry out those activities.”

Kyeyune explains that they are looking for partners at SAIPEC, as the Uganda National Oil Company needs joint-venture partners for the Kasuruban Contract Area and a 60K refinery project.

She says, “We support international companies interested in setting up in Uganda, but we advocate for an Africa-wide local content program, which means we’re looking to other African countries to provide the resources, goods and services we don’t have in-country before we look to the rest of the world. SAIPEC is a good ground to achieve all those objectives while learning from other countries and their successes so we don’t make the mistakes they made.”

She stresses the importance of attending SAIPEC saying, “SAIPEC is the most informative conference in Sub-Saharan Africa as you can comprehensively learn what is happening within the region, the opportunities available for service providers and investors. It also helps when looking for regional partnerships for local content practices in the execution of projects across Africa. SAIPEC is a great place to network and meet professionals from other countries to share experiences and build relationships. Many people that are not easily approached can be accessed at SAIPEC and long-term relationships can be built.