June 2012
Saipem Contracting Nigeria commits Carpensalda welding works at the yard Rumuolumeni.
It is a yard of excellence, our best welders have been employed for this trip. They are specialized in welding with TIG / GTAW for alloy steels.
Manufacturing activities were carried out in Nigeria, at the shipyard in Rumuolumeni, owned by Saipem.
Rumuolumeni – A yard of excellence 
Lagos, NIGERIA – For Nigeria's oil and gas industry, the phrase most commonly used today by upstream, downstream and service companies alike is local content. Through the passing of the Nigerian Content Act and the establishment of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) in 2010, the country has set itself onto a path of more local participation in and ownership of its vast oil and gas industry. Ernest Nwapa, who is heading the NCDMB, has identified several main issues to tackle in the short- to medium-term, including local manufacturing and fabrication.
WELL-ROUNDED BASE: In June, Rumuolumeni, Nigeria's and West Africa's largest fabrication yard, celebrated its 15-year anniversary. The yard is located near Port Harcourt, and is owned and operated by Saipem, Italian company ENI's subsidiary in engineering, procurement, construction and installation, which acquired the land in June 1997. The yard is one of the key assets for Saipem in Nigeria, where, in 2012, the company is preparing to celebrate its 45-year long presence. The yard encompasses a total area of almost 1,000,000 square metres, which includes a 30,000-square metre covered fabrication area. The yard's general fabrication capacity is approximately 25,000 tonnes per year. As the largest facility of its kind, Rumuolumeni allows Saipem to tackle large-scale projects and houses works that range from offshore jackets, risers, buoys and topsides modules to general onshore fabrication and logistics support for offshore installation campaigns.
BIG PROJECTS: Saipem is currently the largest engineering, procurement, construction and installation contractor and has participated in several large projects, including the Usan deepwater development, which is located about 100 kilometres offshore from Port Harcourt and is operated by Elf Petroleum Nigeria (Total). Usan, as the largest deepwater project, with a newly built floating production, storage and offloading unit of an operational capacity of over 150,000 barrels of oil per day, holds a special significance for Nigeria's oil upstream sector.
Most of the fabrication for Usan was done at the Rumuolumeni yard, and Saipem's two specialized offshore installation vessels finished the job in the ocean. In 2011, when Usan came into production, Saipem was contracted to carry out the engineering, procurement, fabrication and installation of the OFP2 Jacket for Total's Ofon field, expected to be complete by 2013. Similarly, the Egina deepwater development, which is currently awaiting the final investment decision, may also mean busy days at Rumuolumeni, as Saipem is considered one of the main contenders for contracts in the Total-operated project.
REGIONAL IMPACT: Although Nigeria's oil industry is more than half of a century old, the country does not yet have a fully developed fabrication industry. With the large upstream companies heading increasingly into deepwater projects of larger size and greater technological complexity, the size of Rumuolumeni yard and level of skill acquired by Saipem allows for an increasingly larger share of fabrication to be done locally. This, paired with Saipem's backbone workforce composed of over 4,000 people, gives it the deserved reputation of a "fabrication centre of excellence" amongst all other yards in West Africa.
However, activity does not stop in Nigeria. Saipem's management sees the yard as a chance to boost regional content at a time when the upstream activity along the Gulf of Guinea is attracting more investors to West Africa – a much-welcomed strategy. The capital investment made by Saipem in the region has created job opportunities for thousands of indigenes and encouraged entrepreneurship in diverse areas of the economy, thereby contributing to the growth of the GDP and sustainable development in the region.
