Stakeholders in the Nigerian oil and gas sector have advocated a new paradigm shift in oil and gas operations, in order to align with current trends in technology in the industry.
They insisted that since the business of oil exploration began, there have not been remarkable changes in the dynamics of operations.
The President, Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists, Mr. Andrew Ejayeriese, disclosed that some aspects of the Petroleum Acts and guidelines in the oil and gas sector were obsolete and there was the need to implement more contemporary ones.
“They have served their purpose and have attained their usefulness. Technological intelligence wasn’t available in those days, and more so the ways of doing business have changed with new discoveries all over the world.
“We cannot continue to use those rules; they just need to be revised, to make them more in line with what modern-day oil and gas business needs to be. There are lots of opportunities in the Niger Delta to be explored, but how to access them in a manner that would be competitive with other areas of the world is the challenge,” he said.
The Senior Advisor, Lekoil, Mr. Kehinde Ladipo, agreed that the industry required technology transformation, noting that changes in the growth of the sector had been overlooked.
“There has been an exponential increase in data volumes and it requires up-to-date data management, to be maintained.
“Despite the challenges in the Niger Delta region, the area is still being identified to have huge potential of oil reserves of about 35 billion barrels, but cannot be realised optimally if measures like technological applications and integrated interpretation, knowledge management, artificial intelligence, and discipline are not adopted.
“The challenge of finding more oil and gas is multi-dimensional, and it requires new ways of thinking, and new strategies, in terms of the way we work,” Ladipo said.
