Digital oilfield will boost competence, efficiency, productivity in sector — Ali Tanko
By Uthman Salami and Abimbola Abatta
Oil Industry Expert and Manager of Nigeria Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), Ali Tanko, said digital oilfield will boost competence, efficiency and productivity in the oil and gas industry.
The NPDC Manager disclosed this on Monday in an exclusive interview with Nigerian NewsDirect.
Tanko underscored the importance of digital oilfield, noting that it would increase competency, capacity building and quick turn around of jobs.
On the fear of being attacked by hackers, Tanko, who mentioned that ransomware is one of the drawbacks of digital oilfield, stressed the need for users to safeguard their assets.
“In terms of safeguarding your assets, the data itself is very important. You need to know your providers. They must be able to guarantee your data security. You must ensure that the digital aspect is safe and hackers cannot take it over your facilities.
“It is one thing to have a digital oilfield, and it’s another thing for someone to hack into it and take over your assets. It is one of the drawbacks, but a lot of people are taking care of it.
“So it depends on the service provider and it depends on the data security, it’s very important,” he said.
He went further to advocate that digital oilfield in Nigeria will reduce the owner’s footprint, thereby saving cost.
According to him, “When you reduce your footprint, you don’t need to send people to work. You can simply digitalise the process and operate it from anywhere.
“For instance, if you want to open toilet, you know where the toilet is, and you can remotely open the toilet. So when you have your valves and wellhead, you digitalise them.
“If you want to work on the wellhead, you don’t need to pass through somebody that will move through a location and might end up being kidnapped since you can digitally work on it.
“Maybe if well A is producing too much water and well B is not producing enough, you can beat well A down digitally to produce small quantity of water. In that case, you increase your production optimisation and decision-taking.
“In another instance, you might be drilling a well that is very deep with pressure and temperature, and the well site geologist needs to take a decision. Perhaps he has already reached a high temperature and high pressure that can cause blow out. The senior geologist who is in Lagos or Port Harcourt can easily give guidance on what to do.
“It’s just like doctors when they are doing operation. A doctor in the US can be observing what the another doctor is doing in another location. It is similar in the oilfield. It helps the country and the company because it creates safety and asset integrity.
“By asset integrity, if you don’t have money to be buying or increasing investment, you will have to maintain the little you have. And you can maintain it with maintenance culture. So, when you are getting a digital oilfield, you have real time data. If you say that a particular generator will run for 21 hours, once it is 21 hours, you know that you have to shut it down for maintenance and use another generator,” he added.
Speaking on whether the emergence of digital oilfield can result in loss of jobs, he said, “Many of those jobs are reserved for people in the community, but by the time you go digital, it is going to make them lose their jobs, but in essence, it’s actually going to increase efficiency.
“When you go digital, if you want to work on a particular oil well, you already know the well that has an issue, the number of facilities you need to work on and the number of hours you need to work, so right from your location, you will understand how to solve the problem.
“So, initially, there would be a little bit of pushback in terms of job, but in the long run, it will increase job and capital because people will be well paid, and they will work smartly.”
