By Saidu Abubakar
Shell Companies in Nigeria (SCiN) and staff won several awards at the 41st annual international conference and exhibition of the National Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) in Lagos, in recognition of an educative exhibition and insightful technical presentations.
The awards and recognition night which formally rounded off the conference on Thursday night, saw SCiN win the Best Exhibitor and Platinum Sponsor awards, the organisation’s Media Relations Manager, Abimbola Essien-Nelson said in a statement.
It added that the team of engineers led by Senior Production Geologist, Abidemi Belgore, took the trophy for the first position in Technical paper presentation while Ernest Ikpolo, a senior geophysicist, walked away with the 3rd position in the same category. Over 200 presentations and posters were considered by the organisers.
The NAPE Award of Excellence for service went to Shell’s Manus Kanu and Philip Ajaebili.
The high point of the NAPE event was the emergence of Shell’s Growth and Portfolio Project Lead, Johnbosco Uche, as the President-elect of the professional body. Outgoing NAPE President, Elliot Ibie, described Shell as “a leading light in the oil and gas industry providing direction and support particularly to indigenous companies.”
Managing Director, Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo), Elohor Aiboni, who was represented by Exploration Manager, Gogo Eneyok, received the award on behalf of Shell companies.
“We recognise that being an industry leader puts on us enormous responsibility and we have continued to rethink and reshape our strategies in a manner that brings optimal value to Nigeria, our partners and the local service industry,” Eneyok said.
He described the individual and corporate awards as “a reward for excellence and diligence displayed by staff of Shell in Nigeria.”
The SCiN exhibition at the four-day conference was a notable centre of attraction as it featured illustrative posters on key business areas with learning sessions for young and student engineers. There were also free medical services where hundreds of persons received health checks and drugs.
Speaking earlier at the opening ceremony on Monday, the SNEPCo MD had said Nigeria needed to diversify its renewable energy portfolio if it must reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuel production and at the same time meet the energy needs of a growing population.
It could achieve this by encouraging Public-Private Partnerships in renewable energy to overcome high investment costs and limited access to financing.