Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences: Research Areas

Article Title: Sustainable Operation of Marginal Fields in Nigeria: Opportunities, Challenges and Best Practices
by Koso I. Idigbe and Kelani O. Bello

Abstract:
For over forty years, Nigeria has witnessed the transformation of the economy from agriculture-based to oil-based. Evolving the local content initiative in this oil-based economy, the Federal Government of Nigeria in 2003, awarded 24 marginal fields of the available 116, with over 2.8 billion barrels of crude oil reserves, to indigenous companies, for development and exploitation. This initiative has two main objectives, namely, the greater involvement of local companies in the upstream sector of the petroleum industry towards a higher level of indigenization, and growing more reserves of petroleum assets. However, by the end of June 2013, less than 30% of the awarded fields are producing petroleum assets, crude oil and/or natural gas and its derivatives. In this paper, we present opportunities to sustain corporate responsibilities - social and economic, and investigated challenges that confront the local operators of these fields. Basic roles that will improve the contribution of the operators of marginal fields in Nigeria towards value creation are suggested for optimization. We posit that proper business engineering and the monetization of natural gas assets in these fields will be major best practices for value creation. We believe these will significantly impact on the sustainable operations of the marginal fields, and thus, ensure the success of the marginal field initiative, especially, in the growing of natural gas reserves, a key component for power generation in Nigeria.

Keywords: marginal fields, indigenous companies, opportunities, challenges, value creation, monetization, natural gas assets, best practices

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