By Emmanuella Anokam
Alfa Designs Nigeria Limited, a leading oil and gas servicing company, has urged oil producing companies to leverage ‘Smart Com Unit’ technology, to promote safety and tackle oil theft in the country.
Mr Ikechukwu Okonkwo, Well Head Team Lead of the company, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Wednesday in Yenagoa, Bayelsa.
He spoke on the sidelines of the ongoing Nigeria Oil and Gas Opportunity Fair (NOGOF) 2025, being organised by Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB).
The fair with the theme: “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.
Okonkwo said to maintain safety, the company innovated the technology, with an embedded system, leveraging on the Internet of Thing (IoT), to offer a remote monitoring of a Well head pressure and environment while offering safety.
He said the ‘Smart Com Unit’ device would be installed on the oil Well head to offer automation and safety to the system.
The expert said the company upgraded the unit with an embedded system to conveniently monitor through the internet, while the conventional unit only allowed physical monitoring of pressure at the Well head at an interval.
He said that the unit which had been tasted was at its packaging stage and would be assembled soon.
The expert said having the Smart Com Unit on the Well head would help prevent oil pipeline theft by shutting down the well when there was a sudden change in operating pressure.
“As soon as the system notices a pressure drop which can be as a result of oil theft or sabotage it will automatically shut down the Well, to reduce the amount of oil loss in the oil producing facility.
“It is highly recommended and advisable for most of the oil producing facilities to have this Smart Com Unit in their Well head environment to help increase response time and intervention.
“If there’s a tamper on a flow line, this system will detect the change in the oil pressure and trip off the Well automatically from further dispensing of the oil.
“The oil exploration companies should consider having the Smart Com Unit in their oil Well to optimise production and offer safety.
“The uniqueness of this smart con unit is that it enables users to view the Well head parameters at the comfort of their offices through internet, and it provides a surveillance footprint of the Well head environment,’’ he said.
Okwnkwo said the unit could also help to keep the Well head down hole safety valve continuously open for production.
“Having this smart com unit on that Well will always detect when that down hole safety valve is losing the operational pressure.
“This smart con unit communicates with what we call a smart cloud platform that assesses foot prints, provides surveillance and keeps a data transport history,’’ he said.
He described a strainer basket, being manufactured by Alpha Design with a pure stainless material as being used in the filtration of debris from damaging most of the downstream equipment.
“It helps to offer a standard filtration of all those production to prolong the lifespan of your control equipment,’’ he said.
He further identified a Diaphragm Control Pilot (DCP) as a device that is being used in assembling and production of the core unit.
According to him, Alpha Design is now a manufacturer of this DCP because its Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) has discontinued the production of the device.
He also described the turbine meter as flow rate measurement of liquid and gases.
“The unit improves on the response time in terms of emergency on the Well because if you don’t have a smart control unit to know when things happen, the response time will be very low.
“If emergency happens, this system will shut down the well and also notify the people at the office to quickly increase response time.
“All oil well head operators highly required smart com unit at their facilities for Well head management and safety at the flow line and protection of the pipeline,’’ he said. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)