By Emmanuella Anokam
Alfa Designs Nigeria Limited, a leading oil and gas servicing company has underscored the need for quality asset integrity inspection services in the industry, to ensure productivity and safety.
Mr Shittu Oladapo, Asset Integrity Lead, Alfa Designs Nigeria Ltd., made this known on Wednesday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Yenagoa, Bayelsa.
Oladapo spoke on the sidelines of the ongoing Nigeria Oil and Gas Opportunity Fair (NOGOF) 2025, organised by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).
The fair which has its theme as “Driving Investment and Production Growth: Shaping a Sustainable Future for Nigeria’s Oil and Gas Industry through Indigenous Capacity Development”, holds from May 20 to May 22.
Oladapo described asset integrity inspection as an assessment of operational equipment/facility to achieve total reliability and safety.
“The oil and gas industry is lagging behind in terms of quality asset integrity inspection services.
“The industry needs to strengthen the integrity inspection of production equipment status to ensure reliability, durability and sustainability of oil and gas equipment/facility to avoid exposing people to dangers.”
According to him, an asset integrity management can reveal the status of an asset, in terms of integrity, wellbeing, fitness for purpose and continuous operation.
He said that oil and gas equipment and facilities required up to date integrity inspection services to enhance safety reliability and avoid unnecessary downtime.
Oladapo said that without adequate integrity inspection services, operators of oil and gas facilities could be exposed to hazards and other forms of accidents.
“They need a third party inspection company to do that, which is what Alfa Designs Nigeria Ltd. represents. We can give quality services and value at a competitive pricing,’’ he said.
He emphasised the need to engage the services of an asset integrity management companies to ensure that oil and gas equipment are up to date in terms of inspection and reliability status.
Oladapo explained that its asset integrity management system outlines the ability of an asset to perform its functions effectively while protecting health, safety and environment and also ensuring that who deliver integrity are in place.
He said there were wide range of inspection equipment used to inspect the integrity status of oil and gas industry production equipment for continuous operation.
According to him, Alfa Designs has a fleet of advanced inspection equipment in their capability, as well as competent personnel to execute the project whenever contacted.
He identified the Scorpion Biscan Crawler as a type of its advanced asset integrity inspection equipment, which could also be referred to as robotic crawler.
“A robotic crawler is used for advanced ultrasonic inspection services, basically for above ground atmospheric storage tanks, pressure vessels, process piping among others to detect corrosion.
“We have another equipment called Magnetic Flux Leakage (MFL-3Di) which basically has a high probability and sensitivity for detecting corrosion and crack in storage tanks bottom plates.
“This inspection equipment has a capability for top and bottom defect discrimination, which signifies the area where the discontinuity or defect is taking place.
“The equipment has the capability to identify or detect precisely the status of the facility, issues and where the defect is occurring.
“There is complementary equipment to MFL-3Di called MFL hand scan which complements the 3Di in the area it cannot access.
“Another equipment that is very precise is Guided Wave Ultrasonic Testing equipment which is part of our advanced inspection equipment used for processing and screening of a pipe,” he said.
The expert further explained that the equipment can screen as long as 30 meters apart, both positive and negative direction of any pipe either on the surface level or below ground level.
“When your production equipment, such as process piping, pressure vessels, storage tanks, process valves (manual and pneumatic control valves), production pumps among others, have an optimal performance, you will not experience a downtime,” he added.
(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)