NNPC, Others To Establish Oil Research Facilities

NNPC, Others To Establish Oil Research Facilities

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board and the Petroleum Technology Development Fund are finalising plans to build research facilities for the oil and gas sector in strategic locations across the country.

According to the Executive Secretary, PTDF, Bello Gusau, the absence of key research facilities in Nigeria, coupled with paucity of fund, had hindered the effective study of the country’s petroleum industry.

Gusau disclosed this at the PTDF National Board of Trustees Meeting on Endowment Research at the agency’s headquarters in Abuja on Thursday.

He said, “There is this complain we have been coming across since the life of the PTDF, which is that we cannot do research if we do not have the necessary facility to do that. The fact of the matter is that I have seen that in many of the instances that we listed, there are instances whereby people have to go to some other countries to access facilities. This should not be the case.

“One of the things I really want us to put on the table in the cause of this meeting is how do we take care of that problem? What do we do about that? We have had a few meetings in the last six months, we are trying to bring many industry players together.”

He added, “Presently, the NNPC Research and Development Department is on board; the Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board is on also. We want to work together to see how we can make facilities available for researches across the country, especially those researches that are dedicated to the oil and gas industry. I am hoping this meeting would kick-start that process.”

Gusau said the plan for setting up the research facilities, beginning with about two or more, had been going on for sometime now among the PTDF, NNPC and NCDMB and had reached advanced stages.

He noted that if the country had such facility in centralised location, researchers from across Nigeria would come and avail themselves of such facilities to conduct their research.

Gusau said, “NNPC is a big organisation and they have a well-established research and development department. We have just commenced that process of identifying key research issues relating to domesticating technology in the oil and gas industry that we can pursue together.”