Tenaris Global Services has spent about $10 million rebuilding a pipe-coating line in Nigeria’s main oil-service hub, a wager that deepwater work will keep coming after years in which much of the country’s supply chain shrank or left.
The company marked 25 years in Nigeria at a ceremony at the Federal Lighter Terminal in the Oil and Gas Free Zone in Onne.
It inaugurated the upgraded five-layer thermal insulation plant, run through its unit Pipe Coaters Nigeria Limited, and declared the Bonga North coating campaign complete. Tenaris says the plant is the only one of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa.
The work covered three-layer polypropylene anti-corrosion coating and five-layer polypropylene thermal insulation coating, both standard for deepwater pipelines. Tenaris says it was done in-country on an accelerated schedule, which kept spending in Nigeria and built local expertise for later offshore projects.
“These achievements, including the commissioning of the only 5 Layer Thermal Insulation Plant in Sub-Saharan Africa, reflect our long-term commitment to supporting the growth of Nigeria’s energy industry,” Rosario Osobase, the company’s managing director in Nigeria, said.
Between 2014 and 2023, weak project activity and market uncertainty pushed several pipe companies to close and many engineering, procurement and construction firms to exit Nigeria. Tenaris stayed. It kept its OCTG threading facility in Onne running through the downturns, sent staff on local and international assignments, and held on to its coating capability for when demand returned.
“Tenaris did not leave,” Heineken Lokpobiri, minister for state petroleum resources, said, referring to the lean years.
As chairman of the governing council of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, he also urged consistent enforcement of local content rules to protect companies that have invested in Nigerian industry and the skilled jobs that come with them.
Tenaris says the patience is starting to pay off as oil and gas output rises, domestic operators expand and international companies keep investing in deepwater.
Tenaris operates manufacturing sites in 17 countries and service centers in 19. It employs about 25,000 people of more than 100 nationalities and has annual capacity of 8 million tons of steel pipe.
In Nigeria, it has supplied premium OCTG, accessories and coating services. Over the past decade, it has delivered more than 20,000 tons of OCTG for former Shell assets now operated by Renaissance Africa Energy Company. Through Pipe Coaters, it has also worked on gas pipeline projects meant to support industrialisation.
Juan Juanicotena, the company’s senior commercial director for Sub-Saharan Africa, said Bonga North was technically complex and tightly scheduled, yet was delivered on time in Nigeria.
“This demonstrates that Nigeria possesses the people, infrastructure and industrial capabilities required to execute projects of the highest quality standards,” he said. He named Bonga Southwest, Obodo and Zabazaba as future developments where that capacity could be used.
Alessandro D’Angelo, commercial vice president for Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe and the Caspian Sea, said Nigeria is entering a new phase of growth. Continuity of investment and project activity will be critical to local value creation, he said.
Olu Verheijen, Special Adviser to the President on Energy, addressed the event by video. She said the completed campaign and the new plant show Tenaris believes in Nigeria’s future, and that the brand has become a byword for quality and reliability.
She also praised Osobase’s leadership as proof that excellence in the energy industry is not limited by gender.
