OGR July - August Edition 2020

COVID-19 NEWS
Ade Adeola, Managing Director, Energy &
Natural Resources of Standard Chartered
Bank, noted that the oil and gas industry is a
huge catalyst due to the number of players
operating in the industry. And, the COVID-
19 has induced CAPEX Cut which resulted
in key projects been delayed.
Countries like Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana,
and Senegal have put on hold some of their
deepwater projects. While some are been
reviewed, optimized and some of the
projects will be canceled.
"We do not expect to see additional project
been sanctioned. Capital will flow to where
it gets is best value and investors require
variables that they can manage and control.
"We have seen the efforts of the Federal
Government of Nigeria regarding the PIGB
as they are working on passing the Bill to
address specific challenges and to move the
industry forward. But, we need to rapidly
implement the PIGB as it will help in
situations like this."
Speaking further, he advised producers to
consider new cost consolidation strategies,
adding that IOCs in Nigeria should see this
global pandemic as an opportunity to
collaborate on cost reduction.
He stressed that industry players need to
work together on collaborative measures to
provide advocacy to policymakers putting
forward a clear part of how to reduce the
overall cost budgets and how to optimize
value in the industry more efficiently.
In his forecast for 2020 - 2021, he
highlighted that there will be challenges in
the industry due to the oil price plunge and
the coronavirus pandemic.
According to him, there is going to be a lot of
pain further down the line as all those
projects that are been delayed create an inbalance
in the market. The industry will
witness a demand shock due to global
pandemic.
"But, when that demand goes off, all the
projects that have been delayed will be
reviewed again for FIDs and the market will
start rebalancing by 2021 to 2022. Oil prices
may rise to $44 - $50 per barrel," he said.
Oluwatoyin Aina, Group Head Energy,
Downstream & International Oil Trading,
First Bank of Nigeria, in her words, she
explained: "Aside from reducing cost,
indigenous producers should begin to do the
valuation of the asset they want to buy and
they have to be very conservative so that
they don't run into stunning waters.
She said the Financiers have a very
important role to play by curtailing the
pricing and bidding of assets to ensure they
maintain their budget.
She advised the Government to set up a
monetary board and anti-trust consumer
protection agency that will monitor and
ensure that bids aren't overrated and value
aren't been removed from the economy.
She also said that diversification of
a l t e r n a t i v e f u n d i n g s o u r c e s i s
recommended as some producers have
moved into that process.
During her speech on Force Majeure, Seyi
Bella, Partner of Banwo and Ighodalo, said
companies shouldn't use the current market
condition as an excuse to terminate
contracts but rather the way forward is
restructuring their business agreement.
That is to say, all parties involved should
reevaluate their business plans instead of
canceling contracts.
She continued: "There should be a
stakeholder collaborative approach in trying
to help oil and gas companies thrive in this
global pandemic.
"Bank and borrowers need to work together
to offer incentives. While CBN should be at
the frontline in dealing with it," she
concluded.
BP Supercomputer to Aid Global Healthcare Researchers to
Halt Coronavirus
BP is joining forces with the U.S.
government, leading universities
and the world’s largest technology
companies by providing access to its
supercomputer to help researchers halt the
spread of COVID-19.
B P w i l l d o n a t e i t s s i g n i f i c a n t
supercomputing capability to the publicprivate
consortium formed in March 2020
by the White House’s Office of Science and
Technology Policy, the U.S. Department of
Energy and IBM.
The group, known as the COVID-19 High
Performance Computing Consortium, will
pool resources and expertise from Amazon
Web Services, Google Cloud, Microsoft,
Hewlett Packard Enterprise, BP and others.
They aim to provide COVID-19 researchers
worldwide with access to the most
powerful high-performance computing
resources that can significantly advance the
pace of scientific discovery in the fight to
stop the virus.
“The world is rallying together in response
to this pandemic and our biosciences
experts, computer scientists and
mathematicians are proud to play their part
by supporting groundbreaking and
potentially life-saving research,” said David
Eyton, BP’s executive vice president of
Innovation & Engineering. “We’re all in this
together and BP is working with
governments and communities to do
everything we can to help fight this
pandemic.”
BP will provide access to its Center for High-
Performance Computing (CHPC) in
Houston, which houses one of the world’s
largest supercomputers for commercial
research and processes enormous amounts
of data for BP. It has 16.3 petaflops of
computing capability, allowing it to process
more than 16 million billion calculations per
second and complete a problem in an hour
that would take a laptop nine years. The
Center’s staff includes experts in data
science, applied mathematics, and systems
architecture.
BP will also make available the expertise of
its Biosciences Center, located in San Diego,
California. The center consists of dozens of
scientists who have capabilities in biological
sciences, chemical engineering and
chemistry, and works across BP to support
many aspects of its operations. These
scientists will work closely with BP’s highp
e r f o r m a n c e c o m p u t i n g t e a m t o
understand research proposals as they
come in and help prioritize work.
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OIL AND GAS REPUBLIC I SPECIAL EDITION