Investment in indigenous technology solutions improving efficiency in the Nigerian oil and gas sector

Despite the difficult operating conditions in Nigeria’s upstream oil and gas sector over the last few years, Nigerian companies are beginning to demonstrate the technical achievements that can be delivered if indigenous engineers are given the opportunity to innovate.

As recently as 6 years ago, while 30% of Nigerian upstream assets were in the hands of Nigerian oil and gas companies, only 5% of Nigerian production could be attributed to local ownership.

Today, not only has that ratio improved dramatically following acquisitions of IOC assets by indigenous companies, and the steady growth of production from indigenous owned assets, but Nigerian engineers are starting to come into their own.

In-country technological development requires the commitment and active participation of all stakeholders –from the development of enabling policies by the government, to private sector players’ commitment to indigenous talent development and the provision of the financial resources to grow local capacity in a sustainable way.

While many of our engineers were developed and trained by the IOC’s and can claim to be globally relevant, it has taken longer for a Nigerian company to own not just the financial benefits of an oil and gas asset, but to be at the cutting edge of technological development as well.

Take the Ebok field offshore Akwa Ibom as an example. Already delivering 70% of Nigeria’s marginal field production with over 25,000 bpd, the technical team behind Ebok’s success are not willing to be complacent, especially in an environment of relatively low and potentially volatile oil prices. The need for production optimization and maximum reliability in a maturing field has never been greater.

That is why the team at Oriental Energy Resources have been focused on improving the company’s ability to detect faults in critical field infrastructure, before they can cause significant damage and downtime.

The technology systems used in oil production are extremely complex and dynamic, and faults can appear at multiple points. Gas locking, changes in fluid characteristics, plugged pumps, and stuck valves are just some of the things that can degrade the performance of vital systems.

Take the Electrical Submersible Pump (ESP). Regarded as one of the most critical components for oil production, it can be susceptible to this sort of degradation, with significant consequences on uptime, production targets, company revenue and government royalties. Understanding where faults can occur and actively ensuring that they don’t can be the difference between thousands of barrels of oil production every day, enabling the asset owner to maximize production and minimize costs.

To effectively detect faults and better manage operations of the ESP technology, Oriental Energy Resources’ technical team have developed a data analytics system. The system conducts knowledge discovery and prescriptive analyses through multi-dimensional data flows, in order to detect events and subsequently, provide management recommendations to address and solve potential problems before they arise. The system is made up of an input devices layer, which retrieves information from multiple sources, and manages and stores production data for wells in multiple geographical locations across the world; subsequent layers – data collection and aggregation, cleaning and pre-processing, processing and event detection, intelligent control and real-time information publishing – then take the data collected and proffer recommendation-based production optimization methods for the ESP system.

Test results demonstrate that the proposed methodology can be efficiently used in a wide range of ESP systems for performance management and surveillance, and so optimize production operations.

Led by Technical Manager Obehi Eremiokhale, the Oriental Energy Resources technical team believe this is the first of many indigenous innovations that can continue to drive down costs, and increase efficiency across the industry. Innovation is vital in any engineering operation, and by investing in technology, and local talent, Oriental are demonstrating that they can deliver solutions that improve uptime and reduce cost that are entirely domestically designed and implemented.

By investing in developing technical and educational capacity across Nigeria, Oriental believes that it can stimulate greater investment in domestic capacity, the introduction of new ideas and encourage the next generation to look for ways to add value to Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.

Ralph Akpan