The Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, (NCDMB) and Chairman of the Nigerian Content Research and Development Council, (NCRDC) Engr. Simbi Wabote has stated that adequate research and development is the panacea to the challenges facing the Oil and Gas Industry in Nigeria.
This was disclosed by Engr. Wabote during the first quarter, 2020 Nigerian Content Research and Development Council(NCRDC) meeting held in Abuja on Wednesday, 18th, March 2020.
The chairman of the council noted that NCRDC has made adequate progress to catalyze the development of indigenous technology in the oil and gas sector. Thus, the Board is accelerating the R & D framework to drive innovation in the country through the oil and gas sector.
The Executive Secretary further emphasized, “Tremendous progress has been done all this while going back to all the things we have agreed to do, only yesterday we were with the Hon. Minister of State for Petroleum Resources as part of the roadshow to the proposed Research and Development Fair and Conference.”
“Also, we met with the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian Natural Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC) to brief him on the progress so far made, what we are doing today has encouraged the NNPC to wake up in terms of Research and Development, now they do not want us to run alone, by so doing they have reorganized themselves in order to be more focused and serious on research and development which we have agreed to put our efforts together to boost R&D in the oil and gas industry”, he said.
During the quarterly meeting, the council deliberated on the progress report of its scheduled Research and Development Fair and Conference deliverables, programme and stakeholder participation for May12 -1 4, 2020, subject to the global situation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Matters Arising, the Secretary of the Council and General Manager, Research, Statistics and Development, Mr. Abdulmalik Halilu indicated the commencement of the R&D Fair and Conference Roadshow having 70% of identified critical stakeholders already engaged in the bid to bring about an industry broad inclusion. He also reviewed the last quarter 2019 NCRDC meeting with a presentation of the frameworks developed on the back of the ten-year R&D Roadmap.
Similarly, updates and a prototype presentation on R&D sponsored projects such as the Smart Gas Leak and Smoke Detector Alarm was demonstrated as interactive safety solution to deepen domestic gas utilization in Nigeria. Speaking to the council, the Inventor of the sponsored project, Mr. Shehu Tijanni revealed to council members that the prototype smart gas and smoke detection is unique due to its capacity to send emergency alert through SMS and call on linked phone number(s) within seconds.
The demonstration was greatly commended by the Executive Secretary who also thanked the council members for making out time from their busy work schedules to be in Abuja for the first quarter meeting this year.
The council also considered other sponsored research developments such as the establishment of Centres of Excellence, Soil Booster and Soil Conditioners, Hydro-pneumatic Electric Power Generator, Soil and Gas Transmission Pipeline Modeling Language to Detect Leakage and Apparatus for Optimized Production from Sugarcane using Styrofoam molecular sieve.
Also speaking, the consultants to the Board on the ten-year R&D Roadmap, PricewaterhouseCooper, (PwC) gave a summary of the ten year NCDMB R&D Roadmap designed to create awareness about the board’s objectives.
It could be recalled that the NCRDC was inaugurated in 2019 to advise the NCDMB on criteria and methodology for prioritizing market cum demand-driven research projects; recommend to the Board the appropriate strategies to attract funding for research projects; and advocate for the Board on standards for the award of research grants, review progress on impact of such grants on research projects, product development and innovation in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s mandate of improving the Nigerian economy.
