HARNESSING SCIENCE TECHNOLOGY AND INNOVATION FOR ENHANCING MARGINAL OIL AND GAS FIELD DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

Abstract

Science technology and innovation (STI) is vital to economic growth and industrial development in today’s increasingly knowledge-driven world. The importance of STI cannot be undermined in any sector of the economy. The Nigerian government has been encouraging indigenous players in the petroleum industry in order to increase the total crude oil production through oil and gas marginal field development initiatives but this is yet to yield the required result. This comparative analysis study was conducted to investigate the technological innovations deployed across countries to develop marginal oil and gas fields. The survey was carried out among 106 indigenous oil and gas firms engaging in production and servicing at the Nigerian upstream sub-sector. A descriptive analysis was used and the result shows that Nigerian oil firms could enhance their marginal field development through the use of innovative techniques such as infrasonic passive differential spectroscopy, horizontal and directional drilling, acidizing, hydraulic fracturing, miscible gas flooding, thermal recovery and other enhanced oil recovery techniques that have been successfully adopted in other parts of the world but have not been fully harnessed by indigenous firms in Nigeria. This paper provides managerial implication by encouraging the indigenous oil firms to facilitate training of their local employee in these areas as well as collaborating with universities and other international firms which will finally lead to increase in GDP and government revenue as well as improving human capital development of Nigerian firms

Keywords

• Technology innovation, Marginal oil and gas field development, Local content policy

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