Oil Price Increase’ll Spur Activities In Nigeria – Adeleke
The Chief Executive Officer, RusselSmith Group, Mr. Kayode Adeleke, in this interview with ’FEMI ASU, says the recent rally in global crude oil prices will boost activities in the Nigerian oil and gas industry
We have seen oil price increase to over $60 per barrel in recent time; do you think this will cause a sort of revival in exploration activities in the country?
The expectation is that if it is sustained, there will be an upsurge in activities in the industry, which will include resumption of work on suspended projects such as the new fields that were meant to have been produced in the prior years before the market went down. So, the opportunities will be there. We do expect that there will be an increase in activities in the industry.
In the past three and a half years, the slump in oil prices has taken a huge toll on the entire industry. How has it affected your business?
The truth about it is that whether the price of oil goes up or down, upstream assets need to continue to run because if we don’t manage what we have, then those assets will stop producing. So our services are still very relevant irrespective of the price of crude. Maybe the rates are not as competitive anymore in terms of customers’ budgets, which have been greatly reduced.
Their spending power has been reduced but at the very minimum, they have to maintain those assets like their Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading vessels, offshore platforms that ensure that crude is being produced; they need to make sure those ones continue to run because if they break down, it becomes worse.
In terms of safety in the upstream sector, do you think Nigerian oil industry is operating in line with global best practices?
I will say we are, to a large extent. This is because the operations that take place in Nigeria are the same operations that take place in the North Sea or somewhere else. It is the same international oil companies that produce in Nigeria that operate in different parts of the world. The upstream oil and gas space is a global industry subjected to the same global standards and we say safety is the most critical thing. If there is bad culture on safety, it has impact on production; and if there is impact on production, then obviously the country doesn’t benefit.
So, the safety standards are very high and every year, the industry looks for ways to even improve on those standards. There are regular safety engagement forums among the IOCs and their contractors; they also recognise contractors that have been able to help them sustain their own safety statistics to a large extent. I will say it is very comparable, specifically for the upstream oil and gas industry.
Last year, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, raised concerns over the high cost of producing oil in the country; how is your company helping operators to reduce costs?
As a company, we are very cost-focused. Part of our mission statement is to provide a touch of excellence through cost-effectiveness. Our mission statement is to promote the culture of safety through commitment, innovation, reliability, safety and cost-effectiveness. Why do we do that? This is because we need to stay profitable.
How do we do that? We focus on home-grown technologies because what we also believe in is local development, not because of government policies, but because we believe that we can also provide the same level of expertise as any of the multinational players. We focus a lot on training, research and development.
We do in-house development. For example, we have a product that we recently developed called AssetWise. The idea is to use the AssetWise technology software to be able to monitor the integrity of physical assets that our customers have offshore and the level of degradation. That is the way for us; not just reduce costs but to also bring innovative solutions to the industry.
What are the new initiatives your company has embarked upon in the past few years?
Russelsmith is an upstream oil service company with specialty in asset integrity management. What that means is that we ensure that our customers’ assets are fit for the offshore oil and gas industry.
We have been a company that has focused more on quality of service delivered to our customers. A lot of time, our customers do not even know that Russelsmith is a local company, not just because of the name but because of the quality of service that we deliver.
As an indigenous company, what we do is ensure that we practise the same global standards; we are an ISO-certified company and we are currently in the process of transiting from the ISO 9001-2008 to the ISO 9001-2015 standards, which helps to ensure consistency in the quality of service and customer satisfaction at the end of the day. So that has helped us, even during those tough times, which we are still going through. In the same way, we are also focused on innovation, looking for cost-effective innovative solutions for our customers.
We recently entered into a partnership with a Norwegian company, 4Subsea, a global player in asset integrity management. We signed a partnership with them in order to broaden our scope of services that we provide in the industry. With their technology, we will be able to deliver more sophisticated and cost-effective services to our customers.
Source: PUNCH
