Closing the gender gap in oil and gas sector

The onerous task of increasing women participation in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry was recently given fillip at an industry workshop in Lagos, where stakeholders and experts suggested how women’s population in the sector can grow. The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMBC) Simbi Wabote, and the Managing Director, Nigerian […]

The onerous task of increasing women participation in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry was recently given fillip at an industry workshop in Lagos, where stakeholders and experts suggested how women’s population in the sector can grow.

The Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMBC) Simbi Wabote, and the Managing Director, Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala Usman separately bemoaned the low population of women in the field and called for actions to encourage more women to take up the challenge.

Wabote in his remarks at the maiden edition of Women in Oil and Gas Industry Workshop with theme, ‘Mainstreaming Women In The Oil And Gas Industry’, cited a recent study by the Global Energy Talent Index Report which categorically declared that there is a chronic shortage of women in the oil and gas industry.

According to Wabote, it is estimated that women occupy about 50 per cent of non-technical positions at entry level compared to only 15 per cent of technical and field role positions, adding that gender diversity decreased with seniority with only a tiny proportion of women in executive positions.

“The percentage of women in the industry drops over time from 36 per cent to 24 per cent between the middle and executive levels,” he said.

Wabote stated that the agency has recognised the unique challenges faced by women in the oil and gas industry and would take advantage of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act to reverse the trend.

“Looking at some of the challenges such as career advancement, untapped talents, gender imbalance and Limited Presence of Women in Technical roles (STEM) etc. encountered by women in the oil and gas industry, I would like to believe that there is a glimmer of hope in the sector.

“The energy policies we establish today will affect the investment and innovations of tomorrow, and those technologies will help determine the economic growth and individual opportunities for future generations,” the ES stated.

He expressed NCDMB’s determination to play a role in human capacity development, stressing that part of the board’s strategy for implementing the NOGICD Act is development and implementation of its Capacity Development Initiatives

“Our capacity building interventions include deepening indigenous capabilities in the areas of Human Capital Development, Infrastructure and Facilities, Manufacturing, and Local Supplier Development.

We have taken specific steps to train maritime cadets, secondary school teachers, agricultural entrepreneurs, pilots, IDPs in different crafts, technicians, engineers, and environmentalists with over six million training manhours delivered.

We also have capacity building centres embedded in the design of our Nigerian Oil and Parks Scheme as part of our contribution to the development of infrastructure in the country.

Out of the total number trained by the board, women constitute about 20 per cent of the trainees and we hope to increase the number of women trained to meet up the industry skilled labour demand and we will also do more to encourage women to participate more in the oil and gas industry across the country,” he stated.

Wabote said the NOGICD Act sets the minimum targets in 278 services across oil and gas value chain in the schedule and which covers the search, development, production, and utilisation of hydrocarbons (full life cycle) and beyond.

The schedule is a compendium of opportunities as it lists various activities in the oil and gas industry and sets out the desired level of Nigerian content in accordance with various units of measurement.

However, beyond the known services in the oil and gas services such as fabrication and construction, well drilling services, installations, FEED and detailed design engineering etc, there are other opportunities in the sector which women can key into. He implored women to take advantage of the NOGICD Act.

He said on the  global scale, women make up about 15 per cent of the workforce in the oil and gas industry which is considerably smaller than most major industries; finance, manufacturing, construction etc.

Wabote however said that another study estimates that nearly 1.9 million opportunities are projected in the oil and gas industry by 2035 with women occupying 185,000 of total job opportunities.

In her remark, the Managing Director of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Hadiza Bala-Usman, urged young girls to take interest in science subjects to help make unhindered entry into the industry.

She, however, advised that industry operators and institutions should adjust procedures that entrench gender imbalances in employment for local content to be meaningful to both women and men.

Bala-Usman argued that investment in girls/women education in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is an imperative strategy and that such capacity building is not event based, but enquires long time plan.

She noted that affirmative actions in energy policies are also an empowering strategy that can be used to expand women’s access to boardroom spaces where energy decisions are made, enabling them to overcome the constraints to their participation in decision-making in big businesses and energy-based enterprises.

She said there is evidence that having women in executive positions and on the board can contribute to stronger financial performance and that the better a company is at promoting women, the better it tends to rank in terms of profitability, adding that her present position was purely by merit after successfully working as Chief of Staff to the Governor of Kaduna. State.

The Head of Service of the Federation, Folashade Yemi-Esan, said, “Each time I have an opportunity to highlight the immense capacity of women and the effect decisions and actions pertaining to nation building have on us, I am always more than elated and ready to be an advocate for our advancement” which, she said, was the major reason she had to attend the event in spite of exigencies of office.