Explorationists advocate change in oil regulations

EXPLORATIONISTS, under the aegis of the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) have advocated for a new paradigm in oil and gas operations in other to align with current trends of technology in the industry.

The Association, during its January edition of the Monthly Technical Meeting in Lagos, said the business of exploration has evolved, hence changes in the current dynamics of operations need to be adopted.

In his presentation, “The New Paradigm in Oil and Gas Exploration and Production, Implications for the Niger Delta,” the Senior Advisor of Lekoil, Kehinde Ladipo, said the industry required technology transformation because changes in the growth of the sector have been overlooked.

According to him, there has been an exponential increase in data volumes such that legacy data of models, which require up to date data man- agement technology to be maintained.

Ladipo explained that despite the challenges in the Niger Delta region, the area is still being identified to have huge potential 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-di- mensional, and it requires new ways of thinking, and new strategies in terms of the way we work,” Ladipo maintained.

He further observed that the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), should change or review its policies because they are archaic in the modern world of exploration.

The NAPE President, Andrew Ejayeriese, reiterated that some aspects of the Petroleum Acts, and guidelines in the oil and gas sector have been there for so many years, and need to be revived to more contemporary ones.

“They have served their purpose and have attained their usefulness,” he added.

Ejayeriese said technological intelligence wasn’t available in those days, and more so the ways of doing business have changed, and 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.”

The NAPE boss remarked that there are lots of opportunities in the Niger Delta to be explored, but how to access it in a manner that would be competitive with other areas of the world is the challenge.

According to him, like everything else they are in business to make money, so if they cannot achieve that cheaply in order to break even and make some profit, it becomes a bit more challenging, even to the government.