Techbits: Nigeria Annual Conference Draws International Crowd

Abstract

Techbits More than 1,500 oil and gas professionals from around the globe converged on Abuja, Nigeria during 4–6 August of this year for the SPE Nigeria Annual Conference and Exhibition. With a theme "Innovating to Meet the Challenges of Global Energy Demand," the conference explored key industry issues such as finding sustainable solutions for the increasing worldwide energy demand and developing innovative ideas and technologies that will produce hydrocarbons more efficiently. "Even though this conference was held in Nigeria and was organized by the SPE Nigeria Council, it was very much an international conference," said Charles Akhigbe, Drilling Fluids Specialist with Shell Nigeria's Wells Technology and Expertise Support Team and Chairperson of the Conference. "Of the 1,500 attendees, we had many expatriates from Asia, other parts of Africa, and Europe. The vast majority of these attendees were businessmen, representatives of Nigerian government regulatory agencies, banks, technical experts and industry professionals from all major oil and service companies, as well as some research institutions and universities." The technical sessions began on 4 August and were sponsored by British Gas Exploration and Production Nigeria. Each technical session had two cochairs—managers and higher-level executives from major petroleum companies, some of whom are also members of the SPE Nigeria Council. "Participation in the Nigerian council cut across all of the oil companies and many service companies in Nigeria," Akhigbe said. "We had participants from Shell, ExxonMobil, Addax Petroleum, Total, Schlumberger, Halliburton, Afren, Agip, Chevron, Sapetro, Baker Hughes, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Oando, Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), Platform Petroleum, Global Energy, and Midwestern Oil and Gas." The technical sessions included 48 papers spanning all upstream disciplines, from drilling and completions to geosciences, HSE, and management. "There were also case studies, and most focused on wells and field experiences outside of Nigeria. The feedback I received was that the technical sessions were all of high quality," Akhigbe said. In fact, in a survey after the conference, 68% of responders considered the technical content of the conference to have been very good or excellent. "As is typical for our conferences, we gave an award to the best technical paper based on recommendations of the Technical Paper Committee," he continued. "The technical paper session chairs assess each presentation in their session and pass the assessment on to the Technical Paper Committee, who then investigates each assessment and determines the winner. The award this year went to Chukwuma Uguru, Shell Nigeria Regional Petrophysics Discipline Lead, who presented a paper titled "A Simple Analytical Model for Vertical Permeability Prediction."