Nigeria: Department of Petroleum Resources approves Intrusion detection technology

The Department of Petroleum Resources in Nigeria has approved the practice of intrusion detection pipeline technology in the respective sector of domestic oil and gas, according to a report by Africa Oil & Power.

The Safepipe and Retrofit technology would reportedly help to identify and handle external corrosion, leaks and other obstructions, following technical evaluation and consistency checking of technology by approval officers.

As said by Mohammed Abdulkarim, the Director of ScanTECH IsoPlus Nigeria, the innovation after the new pipeline technology would play a significant role in advancing the domestic industry and enabling the country to compete on a global scale at a better pace."The need to fortify the Nigerian oil and gas sector is both compelling and imperative... Nigerian independents and indigenous companies need to take center stage in improving pipeline systems, thereby expanding domestic refining and oil and gas production flawlessly to improve the country's GDP," said Abdulkarim.

The approval of the technology as reported has the capacity to stimulate investment in the regional industry to produce the pipes in-country with a prospect of creating 400 to 450 regional manufacturing jobs and encouraging industrialization.

It is however estimated that from 2019 September to 2020 September, the country spent around N75.23 billion on repairs and maintenance of pipelines leaking transporting crude oil respectively from wells to flow stations.