Nigeria’s indigenous oil companies are aggressively reviving idle wells and maximising production from onshore and shallow-water assets acquired from international oil companies (IOCs) — with some operators reportedly nearly doubling output from existing infrastructure, according to the chairman of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Nigeria Council.
Francis Nwaochie made the remarks on the sidelines of the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) in Houston, Texas, describing a wave of activity among local firms that have taken over assets divested by international majors in recent years. “What we are seeing now is that indigenous companies are reopening wells from the assets they acquired from the IOCs. Some of them have almost doubled production from those existing assets,” he said.
Nwaochie noted that indigenous operators are leveraging digital technologies, local financing, and domestic technical expertise to improve production efficiency and optimise existing fields — and that stronger local content policy implementation is helping to create a more stable investment environment. “Local content is very critical. Once communities and local companies clearly understand their roles and benefits, then you create peace across the industry,” he said.
Building Nigeria’s Own Energy Technology
Beyond production recovery, Nwaochie stressed the importance of Nigeria developing its own indigenous technologies for the energy industry rather than relying exclusively on imports. The SPE Nigeria Council is actively supporting young engineers and researchers working on innovations such as remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs) and is engaging the National Universities Commission on reforms to engineering education curricula to better prepare graduates for the future energy economy.
“We may not get everything right immediately but we must start somewhere. That is how countries that dominate the global energy industry built their capacities,” he said.
Source: thesun.ng