Benchmarking Study of West Africa’s Offshore Support Ship Building and Repair Capability

The West African ship building and ship repair space is dominated by shipyards most of which are govern men t owned. However, few private owned companies have joined them recently as seen in Nigeria. This development may have arisen due to innovations by new local content regulations emerging in the region. Local content regulations demand vessels supporting the oil and gas sector in the region to be built and repaired in the region before seeking for outside shipyards, thus preserving business for local operators first before others. Good measures of developments have occurred in most West African shipyards based on local content. However, the acquisitions of basic ship building skills as well as shipyard management skills still stand as barrier to development. The implications are that most of the vessels operating in the region still go outside the region to effect repairs.