IATF 2025: from left; General Manager, Commercial and Business Development, Oilserv Group, Engr. Cheta Okwuosa, Arsenal Fan TV host, Robbie Lyle and Chief of Staff of Oilserv Group of Companies, Mr. Cephalus Wariri, at the ongoing Intra-African Trade Fair, IATF 2025, in Algiers, Algeria.
Yemisi Izuora
Oilserv Nigeria Limited, has urged International Oil Companies, IOCs, operating in Africa to improve on the opportunities offered them, especially within the African space on Engineering, Procurement, and Construction companies.
The company which has put in over 30 years in the sector has been identified by industry players as rich in capacity and has been the major driver of oil and gas based construction and engineering since inception, and has continued to expand in scope and application all through Nigeria.
Speaking in a session, at the ongoing Intra-African Trade Fair, IATF’25, the Group Chief Executive Officer of Oilserv Group, Emeka Okwuosa, explained that the ability of the company’s to have successfully carried out complex and standard engineering contracts within Nigeria and other countries makes it a better competition.
The company have, over the years, leveraged the benefits of working with Afreximbank for some massive transformation, which offered them both skill and capacity.
Okwuosa, represented by the Chief of Staff of the Company, Mr. Cephalus Wariri, said, “We have handled huge Turn-Key projects and is currently driving Africa’s biggest gas project and aswell dominated the area and developed flow stations which have made it possible to bring service and products through collaboration with Nigeria, NNPCL across areas of need.”
The company has also taken its services to countries like Benin, Ghana, Senegal and other Pan-African economies.
He said, “As a major provider of oil and gas sector infrastructure, we have all it takes to offer the oil companies quality services as well as timely deliverables to drive the projects needed. At the moment, the approach of the company is extending its services to more companies as it has really conquered the Nigerian industry and is ready to offer our services to more countries in the continent.
“All oil companies need our infrastructure to progress. We are ready to provide all the facilities as infrastructure to clients.”
Wariri noted that finance has been a major deal affecting projects, indicating that “for African expansion and cross-border business strategy, the local banks can’t do that much without syndication, and we need multilateral like Afreximbank to support such strategic drives.”
“As an intra-African construction company, we conceived Nigeria’s most ambitious oil and gas pipeline project called Ajaokuta–Kaduna–Kano, AKK in 2014 and have been doing excellently with it inspite of some unforeseen natural challenges which are also under control.”
He indicated that apart from the challenges of difficult financial presence to complement the Afreximbank support, there are issues of insecurity, problems of ease of doing business, and FOREX instability. All these come into conflict with our focus, which is a stable African economy. Because we have benefited from Afreximbank collaborations, we have been able to find our way into several activities that needed much financing.
This has enabled us to make various contacts to participate in the installation of infrastructure within and across certain economies in Africa , he said.
They also feel that the bank must look into visa logistics and travel because it impacts time applications as time is money.
“However, we are worried about the lack of uniformity within the African countries.”