TheCable

Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) on Thursday inaugurated a N49.2m ($300,000) Petroleum Engineering Drilling Mud Laboratory Equipment at the University of Port Harcourt to support Exploration and Production (E&P) in the Nigeria oil and gas industry.

“This will help boost research work in E&P challenges – and that should help to boost the petroleum engineering activities in this (Niger Delta) region,” SPDC well engineering manager, Bernard Obaorekpe, said.

Obaorekpe, who represented the company’s MD, Mr Mutiu Sunmonu, said a similar equipment had been donated to the University of Ibadan and the Federal University of Technology, Owerri.

He described the equipment as a state-of-the-art technology that has been fully tested and put to use in research and development and teaching.

According to him, the technology would help to produce the next generation of scholars who would be intellectually equipped to take up responsibilities toward the nation’s development.

“I have no doubt that certainly with the use of this equipment we will be able to transform this institution (UNIPORT) into a centre of excellence for petroleum engineering and boost the local content in our [petroleum] industry,” he said.

Deputy vice chancellor of UNIPORT, Prof. Ethelbert Nduka, said the equipment will further enhance the quest of the academic institution to be a “centre of excellence in oil and gas studies in sub-Saharan Africa”.