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By Isaac Anumihe
Captain Temilola Okesanjo is the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NLNG Ship Management Limited (NSML). He joined Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) in April 1999. By dint of hard work, he worked his way up from Head of Shipping Operations to Manager, Shipping in 2002. In 2005, he was promoted to General Manager, Shipping from where he climbed to the position of Managing Director, NSML in 2017.
“In my previous role, I had the opportunity of kick-starting the shipping activities of Nigeria LNG in 1999, developing all it took to commence NLNG Shipping Operations at the inception of Cargo Production in September, 1999 . I led major shipping activities and developments in NLNG, from the Nigerianisation programme, right up to the conceptual development, construction and chartering of six newly built Dual Fuel Diesel Engine (DFDE) LNG Carriers,” he said.
Okesanjo is also the brain behind the setting up of the Maritime Centre of Excellence (MCOE) which has been certified as well-equipped maritime research and development centre. He made other disclosures.
Excerpts:
Nigerianisation
When I talk about Nigerianisation, I am talking about what it takes for the ships, owned by Bonny Gas Transport (BGT), BW Gas and Nippon Yusen Kaisha (NYK) and chartered to NLNG, to be manned by Nigerians who are trained right from cadetship stage up to captain and chief engineer levels. It goes beyond this to developing these people into what we call Superintendents for the purpose of managing ships; one of those things we acquired as part of our capacity development drive. Some of them have already grown into managers in the office. Through different interventions, including Ship Management Knowledge Transfer, Nigerians are today manning NSML, right from the managing director to the vessels. Not only do we manage ships, we also manage terminals. The Bonny terminal, where we load Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and condensate, is managed by Nigerians. These are professionals who are thoroughly accomplished in marine activities and who have acquired the capacity to make sure things are run and cargos delivered safely to customer terminals all around the world.
Who were managing them before now?
These two activities, terminal management and ship management, were done by one of the shareholders of NLNG. Whichever way you look at it, with the help and support of shareholders, we have been able to acquire this capacity. Today, we are proud that we run terminals, we manage ships and we supervise the construction of our ships. That is what I mean by Nigerianisation.
How many people have undergone the training?
When you look at officers and cadets that have undergone this training, you will be looking at about 500 of them. When you look at personnel like ratings or cadets, they are between 700 and 800.
Do you train them from the scratch?
When we started the training programme, all we did was to identify people who have been given initial college training by maritime college or Maritime Academy of Nigeria (MAN), Oron. Then, we sent them to reputable colleges in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe for some training and international certification because, sadly, MAN does not have international certification. But, it is something that can be corrected. Within that context, these individuals were trained both at the college and at sea, and they continued on their career path to support and grow NLNG and the industry.
What is Maritime Centre of Excellence?
The Maritime Centre of Excellence (MCOE) is an outfit which we created for the purpose of domiciling all the knowledge that we at NLNG have acquired overtime. In the process of chartering ships, creating commercial activities, constructing ships and managing terminals, Nigerians in NLNG have acquired knowledge and participated actively in these areas. We deemed it necessary to keep the knowledge acquired from these activities in-house and grow it in such a way that we can use our expertise to continuously grow more people in the sector and use that knowledge to improve for the purpose of revolutionising the Nigerian shipping industry. MCOE carries out a lot of activities. Some of them include things which go beyond simulation of maritime activities, such as running courses which include maritime training, electronic chart display (ECDIS), high voltage training, ship-handling, marine pilotage and vessel traffic management systems (VTMS). We also carry out bespoke training services. Apart from maritime training, MCOE also carries out research and consultancy. We can optimise the running of equipment onboard a ship and thus reduce the operating expenses of the ship owners. We can run model testing of ships that are going to be constructed. We provide maritime financial appraisal. So, if you want to build or charter ships, we can conduct a maritime appraisal of that business which you can take to the bank or financiers. We do “Quality, Health & Safety Manual” development and provide maritime standard services. We can also conduct technical evaluations in terms of Ship Registry & Flag State requirement; something that we have done for Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) before.
In addition, we do maritime project management. We can supervise vessel constructions, dry dock for you if you want to repair and/ or lay up your vessel if there is no activity for it.
So, the Maritime Centre of Excellence was established to domicile all the experiences that we have gotten as professionals and to utilise it for the purpose of growing the Nigerian shipping industry.
What is the project cost?
To put a cost to Maritime Centre of Excellence will depend on which cost you are considering. Is it the cost of the people who I call the software or the cost of the hardware? The hardware are the simulator. The simulators averagely cost some $5 million. Is it the cost of the building? We inherited the building and renovated it. It goes beyond $2 million. The one I cannot quantify is the people trained right from cadetship to acquire a lot of knowledge and capacity. That you cannot put monetary value to.
MCOE Certifications
For us at NLNG and NSML, our vision remains helping to build a better Nigeria. And within that context, we are always prepared to support any initiative that will help make this vision a reality. NLNG has supported MAN, Oron in the past. We gave them some equipment and helped to improve their syllabuses and courses. We also facilitated a collaboration between the college and Warsash Maritime Academy in the UK. The collaboration led to the training of 500 Nigerian ratings which were certified by Warsash and Oron. Within that context, we are always prepared, as good Nigerian corporate citizens, to help in developing Nigerian maritime industry. The MCOE will be in the vanguard of that drive. Where there is need for support, be assured that we will not be found wanting.
To be clear, MCOE is not a training institute for cadets. So, we will not train people from cadets to become captains. There are institutions which are designated for that purpose. MCOE is a research centre and also a developmental centre for people who have gone through institutions which are saddled with the responsibility of training mariners.
We also offer statutory courses under the Standards of Training, Certification & Watchkeeping (STCW) and those certifications include electronic chart display, voltage course, ship handling, marine piloting, vessel trafficking information and a series of other specialties. We are also pursuing certification from the Marine and Coastguard Agency (MCA) in the UK. We are also looking at getting certification from NIMASA.
Can you help Oron in the area of acquiring sea time experience?
If you recall, I did mention that the source of our cadetship programme used to be the maritime college. But there is a limit to the number of cadets we can take for our own purpose.
I mean providing sea time for a fee?
We cannot initiate that process. If we are approached for the purpose of providing services, it is something we can take to the table for discussion but, we can’t initiate that process on our own.
How many ships does NLNG have in its fleet?
NLNG fleet consists of 23 LNG carriers as at today. Six of these ships are state-of-the-art, dual fuel diesel electric engine (DFDE) vessels with the capacity of about 178,000 cubic metres. These ships are currently settling down into the fleet and as you know, we have a very high safety record. We continue to tranverse the oceans of the world without any incident or problem and making sure that our people provide the required support to the international maritime committee.
We do search and rescue for other communities and other nations. We make sure that we carry out our contributions within the context of the global maritime industry. So, for us as professionals, it is our pride that we contribute to the international maritime industry, in addition to the services we provide for NLNG.
Any challenges?
The challenges stem from operating and maintaining these vessels. Maintaining these high class vessels require a level of technical knowhow. And you will agree with me that when it comes to looking for spare parts which are not available in Nigeria, we have to get most of them by bringing them in from our stock abroad. This stock could well easily be on Bonny Island but we have customs restrictions. Things like these are no issues in other countries. To use those spare parts in Nigeria, we have to store them at the depot in France; something we could otherwise easily do here.
Another challenge is that the Nigerian waters have been declared a high risk area (HRA). It has been so for the past 10 years. So, we have to put a lot of efforts into ensuring safe passage of our ships. We had some support from the Navy and we have had to acquire some security vessels at significant cost. We paid higher insurance premium for protecting our people on board the ships. These challenges have always come and we have always found a way to mitigate them. We can’t say we are challenge-free; However, what is correct is that we always found ways to surmount them.
