NNPC, Others Move to Improve Oil Sector Output

• NNPC, Others Move to Improve Oil Sector Output

Key agencies of government under the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources have pledged to improve the digitalisation of their systems in order to boost the country’s oil and gas sector.

According to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the Petroleum Equalisation Fund and other agencies under the ministry, the adequate digitalisation of the oil and gas sector will lead to significant improvement in monitoring, predictive maintenance and operation optimisation.

Speaking at the Huawei Nigeria Digital Oil and Gas Industry Summit in Abuja, the Group Executive Director, Downstream, NNPC, Ikem Obih, noted that the oil and gas sector had faced tough challenges since 2015 and called for its urgent technological transformation.

The summit, which was organised by Huawei Nigeria Enterprise, had its theme as: ‘Leading new Information and Communication Technology, higher safety and efficiency for oil and gas industry’.

Obih said, “The nation is currently at a turning point where the required urgency for repositioning the oil and gas sector is more critical than ever. Today, technology is playing a key role in the growth of the global oil and gas industry.

“The United States oil production has surged to an all-time high of 10 million barrels per day. This achievement was due to technological advancements and digitalisation. The ongoing reforms in the NNPC represent a new dawn. They will provide huge investment opportunities and infrastructure development across the oil and gas value chain.”

He stated that the national oil firm was committed to digitalisation and improved technology, adding that this would enable the corporation to positively increase its output.

Obih added, “It will also enable us to increase oil production from our new matured and marginal fields, expand our frontiers and improve our local refinery capacities. It will assist our target to increase our crude oil reserves by one billion barrels year-on-year from the current 37 billion barrels to 40 billion barrels by 2020.

“So, the integration of technology into the oil and gas sector will lead to significant improvements in planning, monitoring activities such as predictive maintenance and operation optimisation. As more oil and gas industries integrate, this will enable the field workers to optimise its monitoring and production.”

The Managing Director, Huawei Nigeria, Tank Liteng, stated that the oil and gas sector was faced with a lot of challenges and stressed the need to have a more secure, efficient and cost-effective way of production in order to reduce operational costs.

“And so, Huawei believes that the ICT and digital technologies are the answer. In Nigeria, Huawei has provided services to the NNPC, the PEF, the Petroleum Technology Development Fund, just to mention a few. Together, we will share our insights and practices on digital oil and gas transformation,” he said.