Food, oil firms seen tapping technology to boost output

Industry chiefs in Nigeria’s food and oil & gas sectors are adopting technology to enhance efficiency, boost production and improve profit margins, top chief executives have said.

Captains of industries at the executive roundtable on Nigeria’s 2025 economic outlook hosted by PwC in partnership with BusinessDay recently, revealed that they are leveraging technology, particularly artificial intelligence for optimal production.

Ayodele Abioye, chief executive officer of BUA Foods Plc said his firm is investing in production platforms and plant development to address food insecurity that’s gripped the nation.

Abioye noted that the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) firm is focusing on AI-powered business solutions to optimize its production capacity and operational efficiency.

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“How do we make sure that we can supply the food that’s needed, and how we can produce more into the market? And those investments are coming with technology that is AI-powered already,” the CEO said during the panel session.

“And currently, with our integration of our business four years ago, we are also adopting technology in 2025, particularly focused on AI-powered business solutions, in order to enhance productivity, focusing largely on our customer economy, which we believe is very critical, and also on our operational efficiency,” he added.

Also on the panel session was Gabriel Ogbechie, CEO Rainoil Limited who made known that the deregulation of the downstream sector means that efficiency must be improved. It also means there must be measures to cut costs to avoid running at loss.

“Transportation and ensuring the integrity of the petroleum product that is being moved has been a perennial challenge. How do you load a truck with 45,000 liters in Lagos and send it to Abuja and be sure that when it gets to Abuja, your 45,000 liters is intact? That problem is as old as the industry. I mean, you typically will have a bill fridge of 300 liters.

“Once in a while, they will stretch it to 500 liters. Well, with petrol at 200 naira per liter, you can live with that. With petrol at 1,000 naira per liter, if you lose 500 liters, 500,000 naira is down the drain.

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“Now, when you realize that the downstream oil and gas industry is a high turnover, low margin business, the margin is in the small numbers. So ensuring the integrity of the product becomes very important. One of the things we are doing lately is bringing technology into that movement to ensure that with technology, the integrity of the product is kept intact from load point to discharge point,” Ogbechie said.

He emphasised the need to keep adopting and domesticating technology within the country to improve the production levels of the oil and gas industry, this way, according to him, will help mitigate incidence of pipeline vandalism and oil theft.

“If you look at Nigeria, for example, we can use drones to monitor the pipelines. And we’ve heard about pipeline vandalisation. With drones, you can monitor the pipelines. You can put sensors in the pipelines. When anything goes wrong, you know exactly what has gone wrong with the pipeline.

“But also, of course, in the upstream, where you drill, and the drilling is quite expensive, you can use your AI to help you in reducing the risk of error in drilling the wrong wells. So you don’t have to spend a lot of money,” the oil & gas chief said.

FMCG businesses are already leveraging technology, precisely AI to predict customer demand, and how to connect the end consumer to the business, especially in the small and medium-sized businesses, according to Oladele Oladipo, consumer industrial product and services leader.

Oladipo however emphasised the need to scale it up for the right businesses in order to meet the demands of the market. He also mentioned that machines used in various factories are also some forms of technology, noting that there is need to “domesticate at least some elements of the machine and equipment development process”.

“Once we can do that, it’s going to increase the scale of businesses in Nigeria to produce, because we no longer need to spend effort on importation. And with time, from producing the small and the moderately complex equipment, we can start producing the bigger production lines that really need to scale up,” he said.