• AI, cybersecurity, carbon management emerge as next must-have skills

Nigeria must treat the export of its oil and gas professionals as a deliberate economic strategy rather than a loss of scarce technical manpower.

According to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Rt. Hon. Ekperikpe Ekpo, Nigeria’s ambition to transform its vast natural gas resources into an engine of industrialisation, investment, job creation and sustainable economic growth would depend as much on developing world-class human capital as on building physical infrastructure.

The Minister whose keynote address was delivered at the Oil and Gas Trainers Association of Nigeria (OGTAN) Human Capacity Development Conference in Warri, Delta State, argued that Nigeria’s abundant petroleum resources alone could not guarantee prosperity, stressing that “it is people who transform natural resources into national prosperity.”

According to him, the Federal Government’s Decade of Gas programme represents a national development strategy designed to make natural gas a critical enabler of Nigeria’s industrial and economic transformation.

He said the programme encompasses increased domestic gas utilisation, improved power generation, expansion of cleaner cooking and transportation fuels, as well as stronger positioning of Nigeria in regional and global energy markets.

But Ekpo warned that the massive infrastructure investments envisaged under the gas programme could fail to deliver their full economic value without a corresponding investment in the workforce required to develop and operate them.

“As Nigeria expands gas processing facilities, pipelines, LNG and CNG infrastructure, LPG distribution networks and petrochemical plants, we must simultaneously develop the people who will design, finance, construct, operate and maintain these assets,” he said.

“Infrastructure creates opportunity, but human capacity converts opportunity into sustainable value. Human Capacity Development must therefore remain at the centre of the Decade of Gas and Nigeria’s broader energy transformation.”

Ekpo said the rapid transformation of the global energy industry was already changing the skills required to remain competitive.

He identified artificial intelligence, automation, digital twins, data analytics and cybersecurity as among the technologies reshaping oil and gas operations, warning that Nigeria could not rely indefinitely on the conventional technical skills that had supported the industry in previous decades.

“The skills that have carried Nigeria’s oil and gas sector this far will not, by themselves, take us into the future,” he said.

He therefore called for a broader skills framework encompassing traditional engineering and technical disciplines alongside AI, digital technologies, automation, cybersecurity, gas commercialisation, carbon and emissions management, project finance, contract negotiation and energy economics.

The Minister also identified critical thinking, adaptability and communication as essential complementary skills for the future workforce.

His position places human-capital development at the centre of Nigeria’s attempt to attract and sustain fresh investment in the petroleum sector, particularly as the industry moves towards increasingly sophisticated gas, energy-transition and digital projects.

Ekpo also challenged training institutions and industry operators to move away from measuring human-capacity development by the number of participants trained or certificates issued.

“The true measure of training is not the number of courses attended or certificates issued. It is the measurable improvement in competence, productivity, safety, operational efficiency, innovation and organisational performance,” he said.

The Minister’s position effectively shifts the focus from training as an activity to training as an economic outcome, requiring companies and institutions to demonstrate how capacity-development programmes improve workplace performance.

He called for closer cooperation among government, industry, universities and professional training organisations, including OGTAN, arguing that Nigeria could not build the workforce required for its energy ambitions through isolated efforts.

Universities, he said, must produce more industry-ready graduates, while companies should expand internships, apprenticeships and mentorship programmes. Training providers, meanwhile, must continually align their curricula with actual and emerging industry requirements.

He also advocated greater participation of young Nigerians and women in technical, commercial and leadership positions across the petroleum industry.

Ekpo credited the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act 2010 with helping to establish the foundation for Nigeria’s growing indigenous capacity.

He specifically acknowledged the role of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) in promoting indigenous participation, skills development and technology transfer.

The Minister noted that Nigerian professionals and indigenous companies were increasingly undertaking complex assignments across the upstream, midstream and downstream segments of the industry.

But he warned that the gains must be sustained through deeper cooperation between regulators, operators, academia and training institutions.

Nigeria should export expertise, not only crude and gas

Perhaps the most strategic element of Ekpo’s intervention was his call for Nigeria to rethink the migration of its petroleum professionals.

Rather than viewing the movement of skilled Nigerians abroad exclusively as a “brain drain,” he argued that the country should deliberately position its professionals and companies to compete in international markets.

He said Nigeria’s workforce strategy should therefore extend beyond satisfying domestic labour requirements.

“Nigeria should not only export energy resources. We must increasingly position ourselves to export energy expertise, technology, innovation and professional services.”

That approach would turn Nigeria’s large pool of petroleum professionals into an additional source of foreign earnings and international influence, while potentially creating opportunities for Nigerian companies to secure technical and professional-service contracts beyond the domestic market.

For OGTAN, Ekpo said the implication was clear: the association must evolve beyond its traditional training role into a strategic partner capable of anticipating future industry skills requirements and preparing Nigerian professionals to compete globally.

He reaffirmed the Ministry of Petroleum Resources (Gas)’s commitment to building a globally competitive petroleum workforce through stronger industry-academia collaboration, technical and vocational education, professional certification, research, technology transfer and centres of excellence.

The emerging message from the conference is therefore that Nigeria’s human-capital challenge is no longer simply about stopping skilled workers from leaving the country. It is about producing enough world-class professionals, giving them globally competitive skills and creating an ecosystem in which their expertise can generate value for Nigeria wherever they operate.

In that sense, talent export need not represent leakage from the Nigerian oil and gas industry; properly organised, it could become another export industry in its own right.