For an indigenous firm, Oando Energy Services (OESL) blazed a trail last year when it clinched a $150 million two-year drilling contract with Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) for its oilfields in the Niger Delta swamps.
Many industry analysts saw it then as a bold statement announcing the coming of age of local might in a terrain that is still largely dominated by foreign firms and a triumphal moment for the local content initiative.
The chief executive of the leading indigenous oil services outfit, Uche Dimiri sees it as the fallout of the company’s ambitious and strategic up stream expansion programme. Emboldened by the company’s recent significant investment in rigs business, Dimiri believes that OESL is poised to fulfil its aspiration of becoming a dominant player in the land and swamp rigs segment of oil exploration.
To demonstrate its capacity in the execution of such high profile projects, the chief executive said that the company has deployed two of its highly sophisticated swamp rigs with capacity to drill under high temperature and in depths of over 30,000 feet.
“This contract is a demonstration of the confidence international oil companies have in our personnels’ technical capabilities and the local terrain know-how and ability to drill oilfields within the Niger delta region,” he says.
Like him, Wale Tinubu, group chief executive of Oando plc, thinks the deal “is a validation of our diversification strategy from the downstream to a fully integrated energy company.”
Analysts believe that Dimiri had through visionary and innovative leadership, positioned OESL as a highly favoured value-adding integrated oil field services provider to the sub-Saharan upstream oil sector. Established to strategically provide oil field services to upstream operations within the Gulf of Guinea, OESL has been stoutly holding its ground in the critical areas of drilling and drill systems.
In 2005, the company restructure its operations by going into strategic partnerships with leading global companies; a development that boosted its capacity and favourably positioned it to go into rigs business two years later. Today, with $250million investment in the acquisition of five drilling rigs, OESL is not only the largest swamp rigs operator in the country, it has become the reference point in the industry whose assets remain the only swamp rigs in the Niger Delta.
Dimiri maintains that OESL’s competence in drilling has made it a leading fluids management indigenous company in Nigeria “engaged by major oil companies such as shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (SNEPCO), Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, NAOC, Chevron Nigeria Limited and Star Deep water Petroleum Limited.” “The company has been offering drill bits services to the Nigerian upstream industry since 2005. Its customized solutions enable clients to deliver their wells on time and within budget.”
As the federal government deepens its commitment in growing local capacity, there is also the fear that some operators are only interested in deploying the local content imitative for personal gains and profit. Dimiri however insists that with OESL, the feeling is different. Insisting that the company is truly committed to growing local capacity, the chief executive declared that since the acquisition of drilling rigs, the company has hired close to 150 Nigerian rig workers to drive its drilling operations.
Dimiri who holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics and a Master’s in Petroleum Engineering has over 23 years experience in the oil and gas industry which spans engineering, measurements and logging, drilling, training and development, as well as operations and sales largely with Schlumberger where he worked for about 19 years, occupying various sensitive positions.
Prior to joining Oando in 2007, Dimiri had served as the world wide directional drilling training manager of Schlumberger, England, with responsibility for implementing strategic directions for the department.
So far, Dimiri has done well in growing his company, taking advantage of the opportunities provided by the Nigerian content initiative. But he still needs to do more in the areas of innovation to be able to develop the capacity needed to achieve the company’s aspiration of becoming a standalone indigenous provider of drilling rigs services not only in the Niger Delta but on the entire continent.