Ministry of Mines and hydrocarbons takes new measures to boost local content

In line with Equatorial Guinea’s efforts to ensure that the country’s recovery benefits local jobs creation and national content development, the Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons has published a new Ministerial Order to encourage the hiring of local workforce.

Ministerial Order Number 1/2020 limits to three years the period during which companies can employ foreign labour and expatriates in Equatorial Guinea’s oil & gas industry.

The order follows years of successful capacity building and training within local companies and local labour in Equatorial Guinea, which has made available a well-trained pool of local talent. The General Directorate of National Content will be responsible for the monitoring of compliance to the order.

“With the release of this new order, the Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons intends to enhance the capacity of local services companies, while guaranteeing the creation of local jobs for our trained and educated youth,” declared H.E. Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima, Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and the current oil crisis, Equatorial Guinea has been adopting a new approach to ensure the retention and increase of foreign investments into the country, while maximising the hiring and procurement of local goods and services so the recovery benefits its local economy.

Last week, the country extended by two years all exploration programmes across its acreages to allow foreign operators to regroup and plan for better expenditure on seismic and exploratory drilling.

Such measures are being rolled out as Equatorial Guinea implements a series of landmark projects across its upstream, midstream and downstream industries which are expected to generate local jobs.

The backfill project is already ongoing to pool supply from stranded gas in the Gulf of Guinea and replace declining output from the Alba Field. Meanwhile, the ongoing Year of Investment has generated strong interest from various existing and new players in Equatorial Guinea to build and expand midstream and downstream infrastructure and maximise local processing and transformation of domestic crude oil and natural gas.