BY UDEME CLEMENT

MidWestern Oil and Gas Company Plc is an indigenous marginal field operator in Nigeria. It was one of the firms awarded the marginal field in 2003 through the policy of Federal Government on oil and gas sector development. Today, the company, which is one of the highest marginal field producers of oil and gas, with production capacity of over 19,000 barrels of crude oil per day, has achieved 4million man-hours operations without Lost Time Injury (LTI), even as the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) commended the efficiency of the company in oil production with high safety measures. The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Company, Engineer Adams Okoene, speaks on how the company is keying into the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan in job creation and youth empowerment, how they achieved 4million man-hours without LTI, as well as enormous contributions to community development.

What are the challenges for operating in Niger Delta with the issue of militancy?
The truth is that, any     firm operating in that     region is bound to face challenges and our company is not an exemption. The major challenge has to do with the host communities. Luckily for us, we have reached an understanding with our three host communities in the region. When it comes to dealing with communities what matters most is integrity. If your company is transparent and they believe in what you are talking, it means the problem is half solved. That is my personal experience since we began operations in that region. For instance, if you promise to handle a community project for a stipulated period and you are able to deliver within that particular time frame, the people in the communities would associate you with integrity.

As such, you would face fewer challenges with the host communities. The other half of the problem is inter-communal issues, which is the problem among the communities themselves. Aside from integrity, we often dialogue with our host communities because we also let them understand our capability in what the company can do and what it cannot do for them. This is because we operate an open door policy. For example, if we initiate a project for duration of 6 months, we must ensure that the project is completed within that time and this has instilled confidence in them.

Aside from community development, what is your company doing to key into the transformation agenda of President Goodluck Jonathan on youth empowerment and job creation?

The youths are benefiting so much from the company in various ways. For instance, we engage them in skills acquisition programmes where they are trained to become entrepreneurs and employers of labour. We also give scholarship to students in secondary and tertiary institutions. Aside from that, we have plans to embark on a mega community project that can be seen as a star project for the communities. We are looking at the type of project that MidWestern Oil and Gas, the host communities and even Delta State Government should be proud of.

Can you give us statistics on the number of students who have benefited from your scholarship scheme since you commenced operations in that region?
The scholarship scheme is an annual project and is still on-going. A lot of students from our host communities have benefited from this scheme and more are still going to benefit.

Tell us about your workforce?
We have sufficient workers who are well trained to deliver efficiently. We maintain a high level of technology because we have programmes for regular capacity building exercises, where our engineers are exposed to skill training needed to enhance efficiency and safety during operations.

MidWestern Oil and Gas recently celebrated 4million man-hours operations without LTI with top officials of DPR commending the effort of your management in giving priority to safety.  Can you tell us how you achieved this?
We have been able to operate safely to the extent that we achieve 4 million man hours without casualty or accident during operations. Also we have not recorded Lost Time Injury (LTI), which simply means that we have not recorded any major injury that resulted in the lost of man hours during operations. We give priority to Health Safety and Environment (HSE). Safety consciousness and practices are entrenched in our operations.

When precisely did your company start operations?
We began operations in 2005. Midwestern was one of the companies awarded the Marginal Oil Field in 2003. There were about 31 Marginal Oil Fields awarded that same year for about 24 oil companies. Today, only four of us in that group are still into production because others had various challenges along the way.

We commenced production in 2008, through the policy of Federal Government, which came about government saying that the Major Oil firms had major oil projects in the country divided among themselves and there were some of their fields that they had not touched for 10 years.

So, they had to give them to other firms that were ready to start work on the fields immediately. It is understandable that the Majors did not work on those fields because they had mega oil projects to embark on. So, government identified those areas and decided to award those Marginal Oil fields to other firms that were ready to commence operations, since such firms did not have mega projects like the Oil Majors. In that process, we bided and won.

Can you give us figures on how many barrels of crude oil your firm started production with?
We started with 3.000 barrels per day.

What is your production capacity currently?
At present, the company has recorded an astronomical increase in the quantity of production. We are now producing between 13.000 and 15.000 barrels of crude daily. We have the capacity to produce more than what we are doing at the moment. We have the equipment, technology and technical-know-how to produce 19.000 barrels on daily basis. We are among the biggest producers in the cluster of the fields in our group