By Michael Eboh

The Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, Monday, disclosed that the National Oil and Gas Excellence Centre, NOGEC, designed to drive the three-pronged objectives of safety, value and cost efficiency in the petroleum industry, would be launched, January 21, 2021, by President Muhammadu Buhari.

In a statement by Head, Public Affairs of the DPR, Mr. Paul Osu, the NOGEC would be inaugurated virtually by the president, as part of efforts to boost the operations of the country’s petroleum industry and force down the cost of oil and gas production.

The DPR stated that the NOGEC complex, which would be situated in Lagos,  was structured to house the various flagship centres of the industry, in order to comprehensively cover key areas of the industry.

It listed the flagship centres as Search, Rescue and Surveillance, SeRAS, Command and Control Centre and National improved Oil Recovery Centre (NIORC).

Others are Oil and Gas Dispute Resolution Centre (DRC) , Oil and Gas Competence Development Centre (CDC) and Integrated Data Mining and Analytics Centre (IDMAC).

Commenting on the scheduled launch, Director of the DPR, Engineer Sarki Auwalu, stated that the objectives of the centre, which are safety, value and cost efficiency, were critical for the oil and gas industry’s stability, growth and sustainability.

Auwalu explained that the centre would afford the Nigerian oil and gas industry the crucial elements for competitive advantage in a changing global energy landscape.

He said: “The integrated centre will also entrench Nigeria’s status as regional leader and position the nation for significant global impact in the provision of value-added services and breakthrough solutions for the industry in years and decades to come.”

Explaining the roles of the flagship centres in the NOGEC, Auwalu stated that SeRAS, an industry-wide programme, was established to enhance safety management, emergency preparedness and response as well as bed space management and logistics services across the petroleum industry.

READ ALSO: UPDATED: Elumelu-led TNOG acquires 30% interest in SPDC’s OML 17 at $533m

He said:  “SeRAS will entrench safe practices, drive cost reduction and improve operational efficiency across the industry.

“The SeRAS Command and Control Centre (CCC) established at the NOGEC Centre, Lagos, while two  other Rescue Coordination Centres (RCC) will be set up at Osubi and Brass, in the first instance, for effective coverage of areas of operations.”

In addition, the DPR boss noted that the NIORC was established to formulate and implement strategies for improved and enhanced oil recovery methods in the oil and gas industry for the purpose of achieving maximum production at the lowest possible cost.

He said: “The centre will partner with operators and technology innovators in their research and development efforts for achieving its objectives. It will also collaborate with similar international oil and gas regulators in sharing lessons learnt and operational best practices.

“NIORC will focus on the implementation of a robust national IOR framework to enable the country to optimise its resources as well as create greater opportunities for operators.”

Furthermore, he noted that the Oil and Gas DRC would offer arbitration, mediation and conciliation services for the industry.

According to him, the centre would leverage industry technical experts, Alternative Dispute Resolution Practitioners and resources of the National Data Repository, NDR, to provide fair and balanced resolutions of industry-related disputes from an informed position.

He said: “The DRC is structured to adequately resolve disputes  in a manner consistent with regulatory and commercial interests of the industry.

“This will address sub-optimal development of oil and gas assets associated with lingering disputes and the attendant consequences of value erosion in terms of national resource growth,  global competitiveness, investment attractiveness, government take and investor’s profitability.”

Auwalu also added that the Oil and Gas CDC  was a world class centre of excellence that would serve as the innovation hub for the oil and gas Industry in Nigeria, and beyond.

He said: “The centre will feature state-of the-art training facilities, meeting rooms, conferencing, electronic library, digital visualisation centre, and co-working spaces designed to stimulate creative thinking to proffer solutions for the technical and business challenges facing energy sector practitioners.

“The CDC is set up to be a regional hub to deliver trainings for oil and gas industry practitioners. The centre will significantly reduce the cost of training and capacity building which is often associated with international travels by utilising both local and international subject matter experts (SME) to deliver world-class training in-country.

“The centre shall leverage the National Data Repository, NDR, and its robust suite of digital solutions as well as other existing real-time electronic services to deliver hands-on, practical solutions to industry challenges.”

Auwalu said the IDMAC would provide the platform for appropriate analysis of industry data to provide meaningful insights that would enable effective decision making for investment, asset development, portfolio management and operational excellence.

”Technical, operational and economic decisions across the value chain are underpinned by credible, reliable dataset both from corporate and national planning perspectives.

“IDMAC will take advantage of DPR’s resources and tools- Big Data, Internet of things (loT) and Artificial intelligence (Al) for evaluation, analytics and data synthesis by interested parties.”

Vanguard News Nigeria