EEPNL: Bridging the shortfall in Geoscience and Engineering

There is no gaining saying the fact that education remains the foundation on which nations are built. Also recent findings have revealed that human and intellectual capital is the main source of value and competitive advantage in the 21st century economy.

No doubt the advancement in science and engineering education across the globe has thrown up a lot of opportunities for forward looking economies to grow their human capital. A cursory look at development trends across nations indicates that science and engineering education forms the cornerstone of industrial growth and advancement especially among the global super powers.

While so much have been said in the past about efforts to make science and engineering education the thrust of Nigeria development agenda, it remains to be seen any appreciable forward looking steps in that direction owing to various challenges the education sector have undergone in the country.

It is therefore not surprising that in realising the huge gain of building human capacity in specialise fields of science and engineering and contribute to the growth of the huge potential that Nigeria possesses, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited (EEPNL) through its various training intervention and scholarship is out to bridge the gap notice in geosciences and engineering in Nigeria.

The decision to make Geoscience and engineering education the fulcrum upon which an appreciable percentage of its investment is anchored commenced solely as an intervention mechanism when it noticed the skill gap in the oil and gas industry.

EEPNL as a leading institution has in the past decades identified with the cause of Nigerians by supporting the Federal Government campaigns towards uplifting the standard of education in the country by stimulating the interest of the younger ones in the study of sciences, creating an atmosphere of challenge within the nation’s schools in order to improve teaching and learning processes.

The organisation has through its investment equipped some Nigerian universities with the necessary infrastructure to ensure that skilled, well equipped and employable university graduates are produced by Nigerian universities in geosciences and engineering.

In pursuit of its aims of preparing leaders for the future and address short fall in skills gap noticed in some key areas of the economy, The Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited (EEPNL), in production sharing contract with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has so far awarded 123 international postgraduate scholarships Nigerians to study Engineering and Geosciences in some universities in the United Kingdom (UK) and United States of America.

The scheme which is in line with the company’s plan to train and develop qualified Nigerians to fill positions within and outside the organisation.

Andrew Ejayeriese, general manager, operations technical geosciences (OTG), Mobil Producing Nigeria while describing what led to the intervention, said the deficiency notice in graduates from Geoscience engineered this move.

According to him, “when we looked at our recruitment process, we found out that a lot of graduates from some of our universities in geosciences were deficient”.

The EEPNL scholarships presents an avenue presented for qualified students to further their educational goals in an environment free of some of the challenges the Nigerian education system faces.

To further stimulate academic development on the part of the lecturers, EEPNL have on an annual basis organised one-day course on geosciences for Nigerian university lecturers across the country.

This is part of activities for University Assistance Programme and is in line with in the company’s contribution to bridging the knowledge/capacity gap in the study of geosciences in Nigeria. The one-day course exposes participants to the latest technology in seismic acquisition through the use of 4D, a high end technology in seismic acquisition which is a very high end technology used in the oil and gas sector.

Only recently, 51 Geoscience lecturers drawn from selected universities across the country attended a 5-day training workshop to give them requisite skill in the use of Petrel workstations for geoscience interpretation.

The programme sponsored by Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited (EEPNL), an ExxonMobil affiliate in Nigeria, in conjunction with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Schlumberger. Esso is the operator of Oil Mining Lease (OML) 133, with Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (SNEPCO) as its co-venturer.

The training is a part of Esso’s University Assistance Programme (UAP) designed to improve the learning and quality of Geoscience education in universities by providing them with world class tools being used in the petroleum industry for the exploration and exploitation of oil and gas.

Andrew Ejayeriese, further disclosed that the programme is part of the contribution of his company to the Nigerian content development, adding that most often when people talk about Nigeria content, they think it is just in terms of projects built, noting that the companies need human capital to continue to grow.

He said if there are no people knowledgeable in the job it would not be executed.

“We have been on this journey for a long time. It is very fruitful as some of the universities are really picking up, we are really intervening, some directly with the students but we are with the lecturers who are really the people on ground”, he noted.

KELECHI EWUZIE