PTDF Completes $15bn Petroleum College in Kaduna, Commences Operations Soon
The over $15 billion institution initiated in 2009 by the late Umaru Ya’adua administration is soon to begin operations as the minister of state Petroleum Resources (Oil), Senator Heineken Lokpobiri has directed.
Lokpobiri who gave the order during an inspection visit to the college on Tuesday said the completion of the college would save the country monies spent in sending Nigerian graduates to overseas training.
He lamented that very year, thousands of people apply for training but the limited funds can only take a few with the current arrangement, adding happily though that “a lot more people will be trained here and they will still get the foreign certificate that they need.”
The minister was earlier informed by the PTDF executive secretary, Ahmed Galadima Aminu that 63 out of the 87 projects for the college have been completed while the remaining 24 are being expedited.
The executive secretary further informed the minister that the college has since secured the approval of the National Universities Commission, NUC, to commence postgraduate studies to kick-start it.
He also said discussions are at advanced stage with its partner-universities in the United Kingdom and other parts of the world while encouraging the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), and all other government institutions to patronise the college.
The institute, he said, is ready to start operations as most projects had reached the completion stage, with international Conference Centre, Residential Buildings, a Staff School, a Students Hostel, a Library, a Management Wing and an Indoor Sports Hall already in place or at advanced stage of completion.
Others receiving attention include a Shopping Arcade, Perimeter fencing, a Mosque, a Chapel, Dual Carriageways, Internal Road networks/drainages, parking lots, External electrical reticulation, 33KVA substation, Extension of 33KVA power line and Independent Power Generating Plants.