NNPC GMD, Mallam Mele Kyari (right), welcoming the Oil and Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria’s President, Dr. MayowaAfe, to his office in Abuja Tuesday.

To shore up the skill pool in the Oil and Gas Industry, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Oil and Gas Trainers Association (OGTAN) have expressed their readiness to partner in boosting the education and capacity levels of workers in the Petroleum Sector.

Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari and the President of OGTAN, Dr. Mayowa Afe, made this resolution when the OGTAN leadership paid a business visit to the NNPC Towers in Abuja on Tuesday.

A release by the corporation’s Acting Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Samson Makoji, said Mallam Kyari stated that the Oil and Gas Industry was a sector that is driven by high level skills, maintaining that training and retraining of workers in the Industry must be sustained to ensure sectoral healthy competition.

He stated that the NNPC would continue to work with OGTAN using the guidelines of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) to bridge the skill gap in the Oil and Gas Industry.

“We do need to work for our country because the human resource in Nigeria is limitless. We in the NNPC are determined to promote Nigerian Content and we will do this by leading by example. Training and retraining in-country is cheaper, more effective and very conducive,” Mallam Kyari quipped.

The NNPC GMD noted that the corporation was a major contributor to the activities of OGTAN, assuring that the partnership would continue to grow for the benefit of the nation’s Oil and Gas Industry.

Earlier, OGTAN President, Dr. Afe, averred that like China and India, Nigeria should be able to export her abundant human capital to other parts of the world, saying the Association would work with the NNPC to raise the bar for education and training, particularly in the Oil and Gas Sector.

He described Mallam Kyari as a well-known geologist who champions transparency, assuring him that OGTAN would cooperate with his management to ensure that he succeeds in his onerous task of adding value to the nation’s abundant hydrocarbon resources.

Highpoint of the visit was the decoration of Mallam Kyari and other top management of the NNPC with the OGTAN emblem as a mark of honour for the corporation’s top management.