Players in the oil and gas sector must task their faculties and evolve innovative measures to mitigate the confounding effect and impact of the global energy transition, the Chief Executive of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), Gbenga Komolafe, has said.
Komolafe who spoke at the Energy Year Nigeria 2023 Book Launch and Awards Ceremony in Lagos said the momentum of the quest towards energy transition must spur concerted efforts to drive the African Market integration.
With a population of about 1.46 million consumers, the NUPRC chief said Africa’s market must be annexed, as it was, comparatively, larger than the combined population of America and Europe put at about 1.1 million consumers.
“We can also optimize the value chain of our crude oil industry by developing our domestic refining capacity with multiplying effect on the midstream derivatives such as the petrochemical industry, methanol, ammonia production and LPG that will spur the industrialization base and improve revenue for economic development,” he said.
Africa’s industrialization capacity, he pointed out, was weak purely due to the energy gap and low midstream derivatives and feedstock for industrial development, adding that an economy with low industrialization was a weak economy.
An innovative approach for funding fossil fuel development in the Nigerian upstream, he said, has become more compelling now than ever as a mitigation measure against the impact of the energy transition.
He proposed a vigorous pursuit and development of an alternative funding mechanism to assuage the effect of de-funding of fossil fuel initiatives.
Such mechanisms, he said, could include pre-export financing, project financing, oil for service agreements and prioritisation of gas development being the adopted transition fuel.
Also, he said attention must be focused on ways to increase production at reduced unit cost by leveraging on improved drilling techniques, enhancing oil recovery and improving oil recovery methods.
Others include continuous data gathering and studies to optimise discovery requirements to be pursued to reduce the chances of failure and downtime during drilling.
Komolafe pointed out that the adoption of advanced technologies was crucial in transforming the upstream petroleum sector, improving production and delivering benefits to government and investors.
“As the world is fast gravitating towards digitization and automation in all spheres of human endeavours, we must not be left behind. Embracing technologies like Artificial Intelligence, big data analytics and the Internet of Things, will revolutionize our operations, enhance safety, and optimize resource utilization,” he said.
At the NUPRC, he said the Commission has continued to be innovative and demonstrated commitment to digitization and automation of all its operational and regulatory processes in line with its core values of professionalism, responsiveness, ownership and integrity to reduce inefficiencies and optimize processing time cycle in our operations.
To this end, he said NUPRC has embarked on the optimization of the Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) to improve its workflow processes; the Revenue Ledger and Information System (RLIS) portal for companies to submit all local and foreign royalty payments; the National Balance of Payment portal for reporting inward and outward direct investment associated with crude oil export; Asset Management Web Portal (AMWP) for Marginal Fields and petroleum facilities, and many others intended to improve delivery on its mandate as provided in the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), 2023.
Accordingly, he said the Commission was embracing and adopting new technologies and advanced recovery techniques to unlock some identified stranded or bypassed oil and gas resources to increase the reserves and ramp up the country’s production.
He said the Commission has commenced the use of smart completion to enable commingling of production from different reservoirs to increase production.
Emphasizing collaboration as a key factor in fostering innovation, the CCE suggested that government, regulatory bodies, oil and gas operators, service companies and other stakeholders should work hand in hand to create an ecosystem that promotes idea sharing, transparency and mutual support.
He also stressed the need to encourage the establishment of partnerships, consortia and joint ventures to collectively tackle complex industry challenges.
Reiterating the Commission’s commitment to regulatory excellence, he said clear and effective regulations would provide the necessary framework for innovation to thrive while ensuring safety, transparency and accountability in the industry.
“The Commission is dedicated to promoting an enabling environment that encourages investments, safeguards the interests of all stakeholders and encourages,” he said.
