Youths in Koluama communities in Southern Ijaw Local Government of Bayelsa State have called to be employed by operators as the Oil Mining Leases (OMLs) 83 and 85 have been developed to production start-up.
A Nigerian firm, First Exploration and Production (First E&P) acquired the oilfields from Chevron in 2015 as a Joint Venture (JV) with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
A youth leader in Koluama coastal settlement, Mr Leghemo Ebrasin, in an interview said having an indigenous operator shows the Nigerian Content policy was yielding results
He said that the youths from neighbouring communities support the implementation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the oil firm and its host communities in 2018.
Ebrasin noted that youths have formed a cooperative society to drive youth empowerment schemes as well as have developed a database of unemployed youths to enable matching of skills and job opportunities.
On the proposed 23 kilometre undersea pipeline, he urged the oil firm and its contractors to consider palliatives for local fishermen who will be displaced while the project goes on.
“The members of the fishing vocation would definitely be affected when the laying of the undersea pipeline starts so they should be assisted while our youths who are trained in underwater pipeline welding should be engaged to work,” he noted.
