Matthew Asabor
Lagos — The Society of Petroleum Engineers , SPE, has revealed that despite the huge exploration potential and the presence of major international oil companies, IOCs, as well as local players in Nigeria, there has been no significant exploration effort in the past decade.
Speaking at the NAPE Annual Conference & Exhibition 2020, with the theme, ‘Accelerating Growth in Nigeria’s Hydrocarbon Reserves: Emerging Concepts, Challenges & Opportunities’, the SPE Chairman and Executive General Manager, Geo Sciences and Reservoir (GSR), Total E&P Nigeria, Engr. Olatunji Akinwunmi, said the efforts and the achievements of exploration in the oil and gas sector are not at all aligned with the enormous potential.
Akinwunmi stressed that to make matters worse there are several apparently stranded but potentially cash-accretive major discoveries in the deep water with no immediate development strategy in sight, also limiting the capacity of operating companies to fund future building exploration activities.
The SPE boss said access to new acreage as well as attractive governance and fiscal terms are some of the key enablers to unlock enormous potential, as this is an area where cooperation between the industry, government and key government agencies is essential to formulate and implement policies that would enhance the value creation of their industrial activities from exploration, through development and production to field abandonment.
He described as essential in a situation where the space is reduced by geographical head-winds, competition from other countries with more attractive fiscal terms, as well as financial head-winds funds for E&P development is globally scarcer in light of the planned gradual transition from fossil fuels dependence to an energy mix that would have increasing contribution from renewables.
He averred that there is every need to encourage and support speedy win-win resolutions of the outstanding blocking points in the new PIB as time is not on their side.
“The Nigerian Council of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, as an active stakeholder in the Oil and Gas industry in Nigeria is ready, willing, and able to partner with NAPE to achieve this goal of accelerating the growth of Nigeria’s hydrocarbon reserves”
“The continuous development of our approximately 10,000 members in the seven major technical disciplines of Drilling, Completions, HSE, Management & Information, Production & Operations, Projects, Facilities & Construction as well as Reservoir Engineering makes us ideal partners together with NAPE to make quick progress in the acceleration of the growth of hydrocarbon reserves in Nigeria” he stated.
He reiterated that the energy transition period also implies a remarkable shift towards quality, which SPE has fully integrated into its modus operandi, as they have created a Digital Transformation and New Technologies Committee which would help orient sustainable solutions for increased use of digital technologies and overall process simplifications which should contribute to reducing operating costs across board and help in the larger goal of accelerating increase in hydrocarbon reserves.
