15 April 2014, Abuja – Managing Director of Avila Consultancy, Mr. Olufemi George has stressed the need for robust Asset Information Management Solutions (AIMS) in the Nigerian oil and gas industry.
Speaking to journalists after his company and Bentley Systems Incorporated of the United States showcased Bentley’s suite of world-leading asset information management and performance management solutions at recent oil conference in Abuja, George said Avila Consultancy was Bentley channel partner across West Africa.
He listed the effects of poor asset information management to include increase in the capital costs (CAPEX) during the development of oil and gas infrastructure projects, among others.
“Given all of these, it is little wonder that most of the largest and most critical infrastructure projects in the world today rely on Bentley’s project wise solution to facilitate collaborative design and review and on Bentley’s asset wise to make daily operational and maintenance decisions. When you consider that an average of 40per cent of engineering time is spent finding and validating information from disparate systems (United States National Institute of Standards and Technology, Office of Applied Economics) you can imagine the savings project wise, with its unprecedented version control and change management features, can deliver to major EPC projects in Nigeria,” he explained.
George said on average it delivered about eight to 15 per cent savings on total project costs.
According to him, during the operational phase of the asset the owner operators around the word currently manage over $2.5trillion worth of assets each and every day using Bentley’s asset- wise platform.
He said asset-wise was the most robust platform for managing asset information right across the lifecycle of the asset from requirements through design, construction, commissioning, handover and operations.
George said the consolidation and integration of data during handover of a major oil and gas projects was a massive challenge, given the sheer volume of data handed over from different disciplines, contractors and vendors.
He said owner operators needed to have complete, accurate and reliable data on their plant assets in order to operate safely and optimise their operations and maintenance activities. According to him, Bentley’s Asset-Wise is a standards-based engineering data warehouse/asset register to help manage this process and offers the owner operator a complete picture of the digital plant as it is being designed.
George insisted that providing access to such trusted data enables quicker, better and more cost-effective decisions through the entire lifecycle of the plant asset.
Also speaking, Avila’s Director of Business Development, Mr. David Ade Thomas explained the company’s strategy for addressing the unique asset information needs of existing and aging assets.
“When owner operators do not have accurate plant engineering data we at Avila can carry out 3-Dimensional laser scanning of the plant and create up-to-date or as-is engineering drawings for the plant, which will then form the basis for future operation and maintenance (O&M) activities. Inevitably, over time, plant assets evolve as they go through the process of revamp, refurbishment, expansion and other changes,” he said.
– Ejiofor Alike , This Day