Digital Transformation in Nigeria's Oil Sector: Enhancing Fiscal Metering through Technology

Synopsis: Fiscal metering is essential in the midstream oil and gas sector, ensuring accurate hydrocarbon measurement for revenue allocation, tax calculations, and regulatory compliance. Nigeria, the fifteenth-largest oil producer with an average daily production of 1.5 million barrels in 2023 and 15 operating pipelines, relies heavily on effective fiscal metering systems. However, these systems face significant challenges, including calibration errors, environmental influences, and wear and tear, leading to increasing risks of tampering, fraud, and revenue loss. The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) reports that between 2012 and 2015, Nigeria lost over $9.89 billion worth of crude oil due to poor metering infrastructure, with 107 million barrels unaccounted for. More recently, over 250,000 barrels of crude oil are lost daily to theft, amounting to more than $25 million in lost revenue per day. These challenges demand innovative solutions to enhance fiscal metering reliability and efficiency. Digital transformation provides a promising pathway to address these issues. This session offers young professionals and stakeholders an opportunity to explore the adoption of digital technologies for improving fiscal metering securing Nigeria’s economic future.

Raymond Ezeoma has a natural inclination towards technology, and embarked on a career path that blended his passion for engineering and computing. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, followed by a Master's degree in Intelligent Control and Instrumentation Engineering. These qualifications form the bedrock of his career, giving him a combination of skills in both IT and engineering.

Currently, Raymond works as a Metering (Flow Measurement) Engineer, where he utilizes his expertise in control and instrumentation to contribute to the optimization of flow measurement systems’ performance. His role ensures the reliability and accuracy of deployed metering technologies at TotalEnergies EP Nigeria Limited.

In addition to his professional work, Raymond is deeply interested in the latest advancements in flow measurement, IT, and Artificial Intelligence. He is committed to staying updated on the developments in these fields, continuously broadening his knowledge to remain at the forefront of innovation.

His paper, “Model Predictive Control of Autonomous Vehicles to Enhance Driving Performance and Safety” is published on the IUP Journal of Electrical & Electronics Engineering.