Kunle Kalejaye 23 February 2016, Sweetcrude, Lagos – Oil and gas companies in Nigeria have been urged to utilise Information and Communications Technology, ICT, for improved cost-efficiency.
Chief Executive Officer of MainOne, Ms. Funke Opeke, who gave the advice, said it had become the more necessary for oil and gas companies to ensure increased cost-efficiency in their system, given the current decline in crude oil prices from over $100 to below $30 per barrel.
To emerge leaner and more agile, Opeke also advised oil firms to outsource their specific technology or business process functions, a development she said would reduce both capital and operating costs.
“ICT can enable oil and gas companies to operate profitable despite the harsh reality of global oil price,” she stated, noting that changes across the global oil and gas sector required new models to managing information, analyse seismic patterns, and optimise outcomes in both downstream and upstream operations.
“ICT can enable end-to-end automation of production process, from instrumentation and field-data capture to data management and integration, advanced analytics and forecasting and visualisation.
“Companies now are using data analytics before they drill to ensure new wells deliver the most crude oil. Technology offers a robust platform to give oil and gas players better bang for their buck,” she added.
Opeke also stressed that aside the cost efficiency and flexibility of the applications, IT solutions can ensure high productivity and called for the adoption of data centre colocation and enterprise cloud solutions.
“Oil and gas companies can leverage outsourced data centres to streamline their business and reduce duplication of roles carried across different business units, at cheaper and predictable operations costs.