By Dipo Olowookere

Players in the nation’s oil and gas industry have been told what could be done to survive the rough operating terrain they find themselves in. In recent times, prices of crude oil have been unstable on the global market, which is giving some of them somethings to worry about.

Energy Lead and Senior Partner, Real Sector at Verraki, Mrs Abayomi Olarinmoye, while commenting on happenings in the sector, said stakeholders must begin to look at different areas to achieve exponential growth if they intend to stay long in business.

The former Managing Director for Accenture’s Resources Operating Group in Nigeria, while addressing the media at an interactive session, opined that upstream players in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry can gain competitive advantage, operational excellence and financial transparency by embracing more automation in their operations and enjoy several benefits including increased productivity, reduced operational costs and highly engaged employees.

She identified several value-adding opportunities for oil and gas companies to deploy digital technologies which would serve as catalysts to achieve exponential growth.

Mrs Olarinmoye identified the increasing reliance on real-time data by international oil and gas operators and the need for Nigerian players to adopt similar strategies given the existing infrastructure, security and operational challenges.

She further identified utilization of applications as a service business models which allow operators to deploy technology customized to suit the size of their business operations, stressing that she believes that if oil and gas companies maximize the potentials of digital supply chain technologies available today, it would help to establish a new ecosystem of markets and alliance partners.

Commenting on the energy industry in Africa, its technological advancement and the impact of these on business operations, Mrs Olarinmoye said, “The energy industry is getting smarter and more intelligent as business operations and growth decisions are being backed by leading-edge data gathering using more sophisticated tools and internet enabled equipment.

“The Internet of Things has created a paradigm shift in data-gathering – today, collected and derived data are being used to improve asset utilization and to reduce costs. This will help place the industry at the forefront of global competitiveness.”

Further speaking on the use of technology to expedite growth, Mrs Olarinmoye described how new technologies are being used in other parts of the world for data gathering in remote locations, such as drones and other intelligent equipment to inspect pipelines, enabling improved collection of data and communication within an integrated operational infrastructure.

“In order to unlock additional value from their businesses, more oil companies need to deploy digital technologies for predictive asset maintenance and to automate basic, repetitive engineering functions and operations,” she said at the gathering.

To ensure more efficient operations in the industry, she stated that oil and gas players can also unlock value from their business by deploying emerging digital technologies for remote asset monitoring, surveillance and data management.

She stressed that this becomes consequential, given the increasing demand for smarter devices and automated sensors on the field and a move to stay continuously connected with assets in remote locations.

In her words, “Investing in shared platforms for service delivery and adoption of these digital technologies by oil and gas companies will enable the ability to provide critical data in real-time without any downtime, hence improving co-operation within the ecosystems and their communities.”

Mrs Olarinmoye urged industry players to take advantage of Verraki’s best practice techniques to deliver supply chain optimization opportunities, digitize processes and guarantee production and efficiency improvements for oil and gas companies.

Verraki is focused on implementing technology and business solutions designed inherently for Africa and fit for purpose, while curating business ventures that would contribute to unlocking new sources of growth across the continent.

Led by foremost corporate professionals as well as former Accenture leadership in Nigeria, Verraki will apply its global expertise and local insights to partner with enterprises and governments to accelerate the development and transformation of Africa by providing business solutions uniquely tailored for Africa.