Engr. Peter Ubiomo Macaulay MD/CEO Harvex Geosolutions Limited
Harvex Geosolutions Limited provides petrophysical analysis essential for understanding subsurface reservoirs and making informed decisions in the oil and gas industry.
Engineer Peter Ubiomo Macaulay is the MD/CEO of Harvex and he spoke to energy correspondents about the service company including what it has done for the oil industry both international oil companies (IOCs) and their indigenous counterparts.
Excerpts:
Nigerian upstream sector, what is leveraging advanced technology?
Two things, first one is on the seismic, we are working with the leader in 4D seismic technology. We have a vessel that is integrated as the first in the world. The vessel is called SW Tasman, it is integrated software. It’s an integrated vessel that carries an ROV. It also has its own source system and it can deploy the nodes for 4D or OBN acquisition, that is ocean bottom load acquisition, is the first in the world.
It means that companies do not have to wait for their clients to look for a vessel that will deploy this remote ocean vessels or offshore vehicles. It comes with its own ROV and source and deploys one of the leading node technologies called the pearl node. The Perl node carries a system of men’s sensors which is very sophisticated in our industry for the acquisition.
For that vessel, there is only one in the world and all oil companies that want to make use of it, are able to hire the vessel. There is only one and everybody wants that vessel.
Is it right now in Nigeria?
It’s not now in Nigeria, but we have access to that vessel and because a lot of nodes projects are tendered for until companies send out tenders, we cannot be using that technology. But we’ve been there for projects in the past using that technology. The pearl node is quite sophisticated.
The weight is about 5 kg. It is advanced. It’s different to the other but obviously suitably designed for deep water operations and acquisition. It is for complex geology.
Concerning the CSCM, it is a complement to seismic. Companies can use that to high grade prospects and also to derisk prospects that they originally thought were drillable. That’s the two key ways that we use advanced technology to reduce exploration uncertainty and increase success rate across the industry.
Obviously, we have other things that we can do in terms of reservoir characterization studies; we have other tools within our toolbox of software solutions and service that are offered to the industry.
In terms of reservoir characterization and geologic resolution, we just face mounting pressure to maximize recovery from existing assets.
How is access to expertise in reservoir modeling petrophysics and geomagnetics helping Nigeria and oil companies makes better field development decisions minimize production risks and unlock hidden value from mature or marginal fields?
Our expertise is on advanced technology. We do not offer services that are common to the industry. A lot of offerings are quite advanced. They are niche. On the reservoir characterization side; we use a product called Hamster Russell and Jason Workbench which are the leaders in reservoir characterization tools for analysis, inversion, machine learning or AI type studies.
We also perform analysis that is different to what the industry does or most company will do because it’s based on the geo statistical method and that’s the differentiator between Harvex and other companies.
Other companies will do the normal workflow sequence to sort out maximize recovery but we go beyond that. We try to work conservatively and use the best technology from our toolbox to find associations to any geological or geophysical, geometrical challenge or work program that the companies have. On the geometrical side, we have worked in the past not just in geometrics. We derisk or understand the variations between the first thing for pressure and the mechanism of one target area to another.
We have successfully done that for one of the big independent companies recently, the resources were very good and that organization wants to continue to work with us.
Harvex continues to do it for the industry to make it better, to give companies the best solution that will help them improve training success, also make the right or inform decisions in terms of their expectations, not just for development, but also for production.
Oilfield operations and well integrity services in an industry where integrity failures can lead to costly downtime and environmental concerns, how is Harvex ensuring its leak line well intervention, engineering management services enhance operational efficiency, regulatory compliance and long term asset performance for clients in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector?
Our successes in the sneak line or E line and integrity service sector have been good. We worked for a client outside Nigeria that had issues to fish a lot of tools from their wells. TotalEnergies about eight wells, one of the large industry competitors were not able to do that.
We help them fish those tools and managed to do that and help the company increase production.
Harvex well intervention service is quite robust and it will continue to learn from its experiences of doing more projects. The company will continue to help other companies deliver the level of production or increase the levels of production that they already have.
The company prides itself in saying that under promise and over deliver as far as its services is concerned to the industry both in Nigeria and outside the country of what it does.
How old is Harvex Geo-solutions is today?
Harvex Geo-solutions is over 11 years in Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire.
It has combined 70 years experience and my experience is 35 years.
Is Harvex known in the energy industry?
I wouldn’t say we are known because I don’t believe in blowing my trumpet. I’ll just say we are known in the industry.
Can you mention some of your clients in Nigeria?
We have worked with IOCs like Chevron, TotalEnergies, indigenous companies like Seplat and Oando.
At the moment, we are working with Renaissance Africa Energy.
Compare with Schlumberger or Halliburton, what would you say is your market share?
I wouldn’t say we have the same sort of market share. We are a growing concern as an indigenous service company. I’m not going to compare Harvex with others.
When we talk about incentive for operators in the oil and gas industry, how do you think government can encourage investment into the industry?
Government can encourage further investment by first investing. Somebody will ask, why you would want me to invest in your business, if you believe in the business, then invest on it.
First take the risk in the business to prove that you believe in it.
The government is encouraging companies in a way, even though globally, companies both international and local are complaining that the cost of operations or services of production and development about the oil and gas industry in Nigeria is expensive.
Through fiscal policies, incentivization programs and direct funding, government can really demonstrate that it wants the industry to grow.
To grow means that they are directly involved in policy and driving companies to ensure that they deliver on their work programs to support the service industry to be able to provide top class service at competitive rates.
In the industry today, there are companies that don’t want to do a lot of work, but they want money. If we are able to deliver in terms of quality and service to international standards at competitive rate.
It will really help the industry. In fact, it will drive investment into our industry both locally and internationally. Investment into the Nigerian oil and gas industry from local and there are a lot of companies and investors that want to work in our industry. The challenge is they don’t find the kind of support to be able to do that there isn’t a lot of transparency.
Should the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) be re-framed or adjusted?
Well, we are just a service company in our own space, we work based on set up guidelines, but from feedback that we hear, obviously, the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement.
There’s always one thing or the other and you can’t please everybody in the industry. You may want to do something to please a certain section of the industry while another suffers. It’s finding the right balance between the industry, communities, operators and service providers.
That’s why the industry is very dynamic. Everybody loves dynamism.
There is need to find a way to modernize the industry.
How do you see Harvex Geo-solution in the next five years?
We are expanding not just in terms of technical and human resources, not in terms of skill sets, but in terms of delivery of solutions and services to the industry by our own people mainly involved in the engineering of technology, applicability of technology that is suited for the industry.
I want to see our staff directly involved in that process which means bringing innovation, design, products or delivering products that are specific to the kind of solutions that we want to provide for the industry.
The other thing is that people try to do things haphazardly but there are processes. I would love to see a company at the forefront of driving workflows on how we provide solution across our industry.
I want to see an adaptability or government, private sector relationship in growing our industry aggressively and in the next five years, I want to believe that Harvex will be at the forefront.
Also in the next five years, I believe that we will also have not just a service entity, but an oil producing company that is called Harvex oil company not Geo-solutions. A form of that structure or name, there will be a Harvex oil company in the next five years, if not in Nigeria but in other countries, we also work in several countries across West Africa. We have an office in Ivory Coast.
Outside Africa, do you have other operations?
Well, not so much outside of Africa, but we have been in other places still looking at opportunities in those countries. In our 10 years, we’ve been to all other countries.
Is Harvex a member of other professional bodies like Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE), Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN) or Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) and the likes?
Yes, we are members of Nigeria Mining and Geosciences Society (NMGS); we are members of Society of Exploration Geophysicist (SEG). Also, we have membership with EAG, European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers (EAG) and America Association of Petroleum Geologist (AAPG.
Do you also attend professional conferences such as SPE, NAPE, NIES and NOG?
We’ve attended some of these conferences and presented technical papers. We present papers almost every year at NAPE and host technical seminars also.
We don’t do a lot of events with NMGS, but also attended other international conferences oil and gas event.
We have attended NOG international conferences like Africa Energy Summit, Africa Energy Week in South Africa.
I remember attending Nigerian International Energy Summit (NIES) and have also attended Africa Oil Week in Ghana and in South Africa. We’ve exhibited at both conferences in Nigeria and Africa. We always exhibit at NAPE but not in other conferences.
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