Paul Agbo is the Regional Manager for Revoseal in West Africa, where the Company’s new technology for repairing leakages in pipelines is being introduced in order to restore and prolong asset integrity. In this exclusive interview with Yange Ikyaa, he spoke extensively about the multiple benefits that oil and gas companies stand to enjoy through the adoption and deployment of this technology in diverse industrial operations. Excerpts:
Can you tell us about your latest pipeline maintenance service that is currently being introduced to oil and gas companies in Nigeria.
It is actually a new kind of technology that is not in the country yet. Essentially, we repair leakages in pipes, vessels and many other plants without having to shut down the facilities.
This works in two parts. One is called Inject Seal, and it is a kind of composite material that is made to fill leakages, and it has a lifespan of 15 years. Therefore, if you have a depreciated asset, this Inject Seal can actually increase the integrity of your asset. The other type is Revowrap and Spritze Clamp, and this applies the technology of composite wraps and resin cure, among other allied technologies.
Then, the second technology is this Magnetic Thermographic Latex. This has not been tried in Nigeria yet, but it is a means of inline inspection without pigging. What it does is that, while you are still producing without shutting down, your line can be inspected. It is actually better than all the other available technologies that are commonly used for this same purpose.
How long have you been able to work with this technology that you are talking about?
It is in use in Holland; in the Americas, in the Gulf of Mexico by Chevron; in France by TotalEnergies, then in Tajikistan and South Africa. The only place it has been in Africa is South Africa, and they are the ones bringing it to Nigeria through us.
We stumbled across this technology and we do a lot of emergency leak repairs, where we noticed that when a facility is shut down for such repairs, you have a downtime and loss of equity in excess of about 2,000 barrels.
So, basically, we looked at it as something that will close the gap of pipeline vandalism, aside from the other security concerns. Already, we are in talks with Chevron Nigeria because we were recommended to them by our OEM partners based in South Africa. Then, TotalEnergies, through their different business units, we are also in talks with them too.
You spoke about TotalEnergies and Chevron; have you actually tested this technology on their facilities?
Yes, there are case studies that are too voluminous to mention all, but as time goes on, I will give you different kits where you can actually see the different places where it has worked.
But generally, for some of those assets, if there is a shutdown, it takes time for them to come back on stream. So, for some critical assets, you don’t need to shut down. And on some kind of lines, for example, you also don’t need to shut down. On a very light facility, what we do is that there are split clamps, and all you do is just a little bit of surface preparation near the incident point, then you drop the clamp and plug it. That is to say that you can clean the area and then wrap it up with the composite, and when it heals, the integrity is as good as that of a brand new line.
You said that you stumbled over this technology, where you saw it in South Africa. How exactly did it happen?
I actually went on a vacation, then a friend of mine invited me to Randburg, which is an industrial area in South Africa. It is an industrial area, so when I got there, I saw them working with this technology and I asked them what it was. So, they told me that they actually do a lot of emergency rig repairs and also told me that what is different in this case is that you don’t have to shut down, and that picked my antenna and curiosity.
This is because the major problems we have in Nigeria most of the time is that, whenever there is emergency rig repair, there is always a problem between the construction, the safety and the operating arms. The construction people say they want to do a quality job, the safety people say that they want to do a very simple job; then, on the side of the operator, they are losing money, they are losing equity, and they insist that they want to avoid losing money and that they must come on stream. Therefore, these three arms are always in conflicting terms.
But here is a technology where you minimize all these conflicts between the three segments of the operations.
That’s so important because a lot of people don’t want downtime to save costs and to improve revenue. It is actually a revolution in the sealing of leakages.
Looking at your level premium standards, what do you really feel when you look at these cases of accidents, especially when it comes to fires on FPSOs as it recently happened in Nigeria?
When I look at those two things, whenever there is a fire problem on any of those facilities, one of the factors that come into place is that, first of all, there are permits in place, such as the permit to work; is that permit in place?
And when we talk about permits in place, we talk about systems and parameters that must be put in place by the facility owner to allow for whatever work that needs to be done. And if such work is done, are there supervisory checks? That is on one side.
Then, on the other side, how about the classification of the vessel? This is because the classification of vessels is where we check if the class of the vessel is good and in good working order. Such classifications are normally done annually or bi-annually, but most companies operating in FPSOs seem to dodge that because classification is done in a way that even if the vessel is at work on the high sea or anywhere, you fly inspectors there to create a mechanism to put it in good working order.
So, the question is, your valves, controls, etc, are they properly calibrated for what they are doing? This is because the reason why we have fires on FPSOs most of the time is when the vents and the pressure safety valves (PSVs) do not work properly. Normally, when there is an overpressure in all facilities, the PSVs work is to shut it down and cut off any excess gas leaking from it. But if it is not calibrated and it fails, something as little as a spark could cause fire.
So all those things are critical, but most producing companies are more after their profit than safety. And that is not good. And when you look at the downtime of some companies, they want to meet up. And in trying to meet up, they throw safety to the winds.
Talking about energy transition, because that is the key thing at the moment; what are your services or vision in these areas?
The truth of the matter is that fossil energy remains one of the most consistent and reliable forms of energy in the world, but there are also so many sides to green energy. When you have panels; to make these panels, you need to make nickel, you need chromium, etc, and all these things are mined. And when you mine and bring them out, they are very expensive.
So, how many people can really afford it? Then, how many panels do you need to put in place the infrastructure to power heavy turbines or heavy load? Therefore, when you think of all that, it is actually a dream that will help, but the world is not ready for all that in the immediate.
There are several wind farms. You might have a wind farm of over 5000 square meters but it cannot give you one megawatt of energy, while a single turbine not even up to 100th of that size can give you far more energy than that. They are always talking about carbon emissions, but what we should actually be talking about is what do we need to do with these emissions, or how can we actually make it safe?