By Adedapo Adesanya
As part of efforts to boost the operations of the nation’s petroleum sector, President Muhammadu Buhari will on Thursday, January 21, 2021, inaugurate the National Oil and Gas Excellence Centre (NOGEC) in Lagos.
Head of Public Affairs at the Department of Petroleum Resource (DPR), Mr Paul Osu, said in a statement on Monday that the centre was structured to drive the three-prong objectives of safety, value and cost efficiency, which are critical for oil and gas industry stability, growth and sustainability.
The commissioning, which will be hosted by the Director of DPR, Mr Sarki Auwalu, will give an opportunity to stakeholders in the Nigerian oil and gas industry discuss the crucial elements for competitive advantage in a changing global energy landscape.
“The integrated centre will also entrench Nigeria’s status as a regional leader and position the nation for significant global impact in the provision of value-added services and breakthrough solutions for the industry in years and decades to come,” the statement said.
It was disclosed that the NOGEC complex was structured to house the various flagship centres in order to comprehensively cover key areas of the industry, including Search, Rescue and Surveillance, SeRAS Command and Control Centre and National improved Oil Recovery Centre (NIOR).
Others are Oil and Gas Dispute Resolution Centre, DRC, Oil and Gas Competence Development Centre, CDC, and Integrated Data Mining and Analytics Centre, IDMAC.
Mr Auwalu was quoted to have said “SeRAS is an industry-wide programme established to enhance safety management, emergency preparedness and response as well as bed space management and logistics services across the industry.
”SeRAS will entrench safe practices, drive cost reduction and improve operational efficiency across the industry.
“The SeRAS Command and Control Centre (CCC) established at the NOGEC Centre, Lagos while two other Rescue Coordination Centres (RCC) will be set up at Osubi and Brass, in the first instance, for effective coverage of areas of operations.”
According to him, the NIORC is established to formulate and implement strategies for improved and enhanced oil recovery methods in the oil and gas industry for the purpose of achieving maximum production at the lowest possible cost.
“The centre will partner with operators and technology innovators in their research and development efforts for achieving its objective.
“It will also collaborate with similar international oil and gas regulators in sharing lesson learnt and operational best practice.
“NIORC will focus on the implementation of a robust national IOR framework to enable the country to optimise its resources as well as create greater opportunities for operators,” he said.
He noted that the Oil and Gas DRC would offer arbitration, mediation and conciliation services for the Industry.
Mr Auwalu said the centre would leverage industry technical experts, Alternative Dispute Resolution Practitioners and resources of the National Data Repository, NDR to provide fair and balanced resolutions of industry-related disputes from an informed position.
He said: “The DRC is structured to adequately resolve disputes in a manner consistent with regulatory and commercial interests of the Industry.
“This will address suboptimal development of oil and gas assets associated with lingering disputes and the attendant consequences of value erosion in terms of national resource growth, global competitiveness, investment attractiveness, government take and investor’s profitability.”
Mr Auwalu said the Oil and Gas CDC was a world-class centre of excellence that would serve as the innovation hub for the oil and gas industry in Nigeria, and beyond.
He said: “The centre will feature state-of-the-art training facilities, meeting rooms, conferencing, electronic library, digital visualisation centre, and co-working spaces designed to stimulate creative thinking to proffer solutions for the technical and business challenges facing energy sector practitioner.
“The CDC Is set up to be a regional hub to deliver trainings for oil and gas industry practitioner
“The centre will significantly reduce the cost of training and capacity building which is often associated with international travels by utilising both local and international subject matter experts (SME) to deliver world-class training in-country
“The centre shall leverage the National Data Repository, NDR and its robust suite of digital solutions as well as other existing real-time electronic services to deliver hands-on, practical solutions to industry challenges.
Mr Auwalu said the IDMAC would provide the platform for appropriate analysis of industry data to provide meaningful insights that would enable effective decision making for investment, asset development, portfolio management and operational excellence.
”Technical, operational and economic decisions across the value chain are underpinned by credible, reliable dataset both from a corporate and national planning perspective.
“IDMAC will take advantage of DPR’s resources and tools- Big Data, Internet of things, loT and Artificial intelligence, Al for evaluation, analytics and data synthesis by interested parties.”
Dipo Olowookere