Huawei: How Technology Can Transform Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Industry

Huawei Technologies Company Nigeria Limited has said that when fully utilised, technology can help in reducing headwinds and improve process optimisation in the country’s oil and gas industry.

Speaking during a session at the Nigeria International Petroleum Summit (NIPS), taking place in Abuja, on the theme, “Data to Barrel”, Managing Director, Huawei Technologies, Michael Zhuang, said his firm was dedicated to promoting digital transformation and reducing the digital gap in the oil and gas industry.

Other participants on the panel included the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Agip, Shell, ExxonMobil, Chevron, Total and a number of NNPC subsidiaries.

Zhuang explained that the company had continued to work with local oil companies in the upstream, midstream and downstream arms to promote new oil and gas digital frontiers.

He stated that Huawei had to develop an ecosystem for partnership through which it collaborated with local and international organisations, explaining that for the upstream exploration and production arm, the company would speed up oil search and improve search accuracy.

For crude oil production data, Zhuang said the target was to increase production and reduce cost, assuring there would be adequate monitoring of oil depot data to reduce oil theft and leakage.

He added: “With this integrated oilfield IoT solution by Huawei, it is now possible to visualise and monitor real-time production and reduce the vandalism on well sites.”

“In the midstream, we have delivered AKK pipeline camp with Huawei IVS monitoring and campus network/office solution to improve camp safety monitoring and office experience.

“In the downstream, we have also delivered our monitoring solution for NNPC retail to enable more safety and secure management at it’s headquarter office and mega petrol stations.”

Speaking on enterprise information, the Huawei boss said his firm had delivered a green modular data centre solution for IDSL to reduce the data centre O&M cost and improve efficiency.

Zhuang added that the Huawei fusion cube solution in the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) for regional branches helped to reduce the IT O&M cost and enhance unified monitoring and management.

He observed that the oil industry had experienced some major challenges, the most recent being the COVID-19 pandemic and the oil price crisis, stressing that there were also conversations about the long term of carbon neutrality and the rise of renewable energy.

According to him, although Nigeria had remained a leading oil and gas producer in Africa, it was important to factor how the country could stay competitive despite short-term and long-term challenges.

He noted: “We should begin to plan on how we can convert crisis situations to opportunities to achieve transformation and maintain the lead for the next five to 10 years. Today, we have set up this forum with some of the most brilliant minds who are oil and gas industry top players and partners across the NNPC, PWC, IDSL.”