Huawei develops technology to combat oil theft in Nigeria

Huawei Technologies, a Chinese multinational technology company, has disclosed that it has built an intelligent pipeline monitoring system to combat crude oil theft in Nigeria.

According to the News Agency of Nigeria, this was revealed by Mr. Li Wei, Director of Huawei Nigeria Enterprise Business, at a news briefing on the sidelines of the ongoing Nigerian International Energy Summit (NIES) on Tuesday in Abuja.

Huawei, according to Wei, will continue to promote Nigeria's oil and gas sector's digital transformation through the development of information and communications technology (ICT) solutions.

According to him, Huawei's fiber vibration intrusion warning system employs Artificial Intelligence to precisely identify intrusion scenarios.

It will help to assure pipeline safety and decrease theft and vandalism by providing high identification precision, exact positioning, and quick response.

Faced with the continued instability of international oil prices, Huawei feels that digitizing Nigeria's upstream sector is a high priority.

Huawei pushes digital oilfield Internet of Things and Exploration and Production storage solutions in response to the Nigerian government's and oil corporations' planned strategy.

This will assist oil and gas firms in achieving real-time visualized production, increasing efficiency, lowering costs, and optimizing resource allocation to boost oilfield production."

Huawei will provide high-quality ICT solutions and services, as well as actively assist the Nigerian government in developing a talent ecosystem, according to Wei.

He claimed that the company had signed ICT academy agreements with over 110 institutions and schools in Nigeria and that it had trained over 1,000 civil workers and 40,000 young students.

He went on to say that they intend to establish a strong talent base camp to help Nigeria's digital economy grow.

This move comes amid claims of an increase in oil theft in Nigeria, with the country losing income as a result.

Nigeria is said to lose roughly 200,000 barrels each day, prompting repeated calls for an end to oil theft.

In a study released in July 2021, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) stated that Nigeria lost 42.25 million barrels of crude oil to oil theft in 2019, valued at $2.77 billion, a decrease from the 53.28 million barrels stolen in 2018.

In addition, 193 million barrels of crude disappeared from Nigeria's reserves in 2021. In Nigeria, the value of stolen crude is sufficient to solve many of the country's problems and to diminish the country's obsession with borrowing.