Stakeholders have called for collaboration among the governments, academia and industry for revolution in Nigeria’s industrialisation through research and development of commercialisation of raw materials and local production.
They made the call at the Knowledge Sharing Workshop, organised by the University of Ibadan, in collaboration with PTDF.
The theme was: “Nigerian Petroleum Industry and Energy Transition: Opportunities for Research, Innovation and Development.”
The News Agency of Nigeria, (NAN) reports that the Executive Secretary, Petroleum Technology Development Fund (PTDF), Dr Bello Gusau; Vice-Chancellor, University of Ibadan (UI), Prof. Kayode Adebowale, and Chief Executive Officer, Jola Global Industry Ltd., and Dr Moses Omojola, were among the stakeholders who spoke in Ibadan.
Gusau, represented by the Strategic Planning and Documentation (SP&D) Department, PTDF, Olayinka Agboola, said the Fund, as agent of government for building capacity in the oil and gas industry, used avenues like human capacity building, institutional support, and funding research and development.
He said the organisation has eight endowments funding in various institutions in Nigeria, adding that in UI, PTDF has endowed chairs funded to conduct research in topical areas in the petroleum industry.
Gusau said: “The event is one of the outcomes of all the research that the chair of the fund had conducted over the years.
“We tried to expand the frontiers of knowledge based on the outcome of research and developmental efforts, which we have funded.
“You don’t do research in isolation; you have to work with stakeholders because at the end of the day research is supposed to translate into products in the market.
“So, you need to have an industry, the institution and the government and the triple elites need to be applied to ensure that the research is effective and you will be able to generate value.
“We don’t want to be funding theoretical research that would just end up on the shelf in the laboratories in the institutions.
“We have to make sure that research is adopted and applied in the industry, you have to collaborate with all the relevant stakeholders.”
The oil and gas industry needs considerable research and we know that if town and gown do not collaborate, it will be difficult for us to solve specific challenges.
Knowledge sharing
Adebowale, in his remarks as Chairman of the occasion, said knowledge sharing has been the direction of building the triple-elite model desirable in the university to strengthen the link between the academia and the industry.
He decried that there were so many researches lacking impact, saying that they were just research for theoretical purposes or advancement in the career ladder.
Adebowale underscored research that focused on solving challenges in the industry and sourcing local raw materials to replace the imported expensive ones.
“This would solve so many of our problems and halt wasting of our meagre foreign exchange.
“The oil and gas industry needs considerable research and we know that if town and gown do not collaborate, it will be difficult for us to solve specific challenges,” he said.
According to him, this is to prevent all our research and development centres from just relocating outside the country.
“Only when we have an effective handshake between academia and industry, that we can develop our research and development to compete favourably and then industries will not relocate their research and development centres outside the country,” Adebowale said.
One of the lead presenters, Omojola, identified industrialisation as the way out of the present economic challenges facing the country.
He urged the Federal Government to encourage industrialisation by addressing the nation’s energy challenge.
“So much money is spent on energy and if it is not addressed, there is no way our products can compete with the imported goods. We can produce so many SMEs, but they cannot survive without energy,” Omojola said.
Carbon targets
Also, a Professor of Petroleum Engineering in the University, Sunday Isehunwa, said Nigeria can address its carbon targets, if it looks inward through research, innovation and development.
Isehunwa, also one of the speakers, noted that energy demand will keep rising because “energy is linked to development”.
Earlier, Head, the Department of Petroleum Engineering in UI, Prof Olugbenga Falode, said there are various challenges bedevilling the Nigerian oil and gas industry based on environmental issues and the rising cost of operations.
Falode said that optimising the “golden egg” is critical for the industry to survive.
“So, there are big chances for oil and gas in navigating the energy transition as it responds to the challenges it is currently confronted with, it must address the issue of human capital development,” he said.
Falode however, highlighted the role of PTDF in developing indigenous manpower and technology transfer in the petroleum industry as well as making Nigeria “a no-man-resource-centre for the West African sub-region”.
