Verraki Urges Digitization In Oil And Gas Industry

0

Verraki Partners, a business solutions company focused on accelerating the development and transformation of Africa has outlined solutions to help Africa’s upstream oil and gas companies thrive despite the turbulent market landscape characterized by volatile prices, regulatory overhangs around energy transitions to renewable energy, insecurity in oil production terrains and fiscal uncertainty.

Energy Lead and Senior Partner, Real Sector at Verraki, Mrs. Abayomi Olarinmoye, the former Managing Director for Accenture’s Resources Operating Group in Nigeria opined that upstream players in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry can gain competitive advantage, operational excellence and financial transparency by embracing more automation in their operations and enjoy several benefits including increased productivity, reduced operational costs and highly engaged employees. She identified several value-adding opportunities for oil and gas companies to deploy digital technologies which would serve as catalysts to achieve exponential growth.

Speaking during an interactive session with Nigerian media, Olarinmoye identified the increasing reliance on real-time data by international oil and gas operators and the need for Nigerian players to adopt similar strategies given the existing infrastructure, security and operational challenges. She identified the utilization of applications as service business models which allow operators to deploy technology customized to suit the size of their business operations. She believes that if oil and gas companies maximize the potentials of digital supply chain technologies available today, it would help to establish a new ecosystem of markets and alliance partners.

Commenting on the energy industry in Africa, its technological advancement and the impact of these on business operations, Olarinmoye said “The energy industry is getting smarter and more intelligent as business operations and growth decisions are being backed by leading-edge data gathering using more sophisticated tools and internet-enabled equipment. The Internet of Things has created a paradigm shift in data-gathering – today, collected and derived data are being used to improve asset utilization and to reduce costs. This will help place the industry at the forefront of global competitiveness”.

Further speaking on the use of technology to expedite growth, Olarinmoye described how new technologies are being used in other parts of the world for data gathering in remote locations, such as drones and other intelligent equipment to inspect pipelines, enabling the improved collection of data and communication within an integrated operational infrastructure.  “In order to unlock additional value from their businesses, more oil companies need to deploy digital technologies for predictive asset maintenance and to automate basic, repetitive engineering functions and operations,” she stated.

To ensure more efficient operations in the industry, she stated that oil and gas players can also unlock value from their business by deploying emerging digital technologies for remote asset monitoring, surveillance and data management. She stressed that this becomes consequential, given the increasing demand for smarter devices and automated sensors on the field and a move to stay continuously connected with assets in remote locations. In her words “investing in shared platforms for service delivery and adoption of these digital technologies by oil and gas companies will enable the ability to provide critical data in real-time without any downtime, hence improving co-operation within the ecosystems and their communities”. Olarinmoye urged industry players to take advantage of Verraki’s best practice techniques to deliver supply chain optimization opportunities, digitize processes and guarantee production and efficiency improvements for oil and gas companies.

Verraki is focused on implementing technology and business solutions designed inherently for Africa and fit for purpose while curating business ventures that would contribute to unlocking new sources of growth across the continent. Led by foremost corporate professionals as well as former Accenture leadership in Nigeria, Verraki will apply its global expertise and local insights to partner with enterprises and governments to accelerate the development and transformation of Africa by providing business solutions uniquely tailored for Africa.