The President, Oil and Gas Service Providers Association of Nigeria, OGSPAN, Mazi Colman Obasi, has disclosed that the association and Petrohub are necessities that came into being at different times to drive operations in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.
Speaking at the just concluded presentation of Petrohub in Lagos, he said: “Petrohub is an offspring of OGSPAN and the initiative of members of OGSPAN who have embraced the culture of innovation and technology for the transformation of the industry in Nigeria and by extension improving the nation’s economy.”
According to him, “The need for an association of service providers and indeed the services provideable in the Oil and Gas industry in Nigeria has been agitating the minds of few players in the industry for quite some time. The realization of this dream had been hampered by the discordant tunes and absence of formative will in the industry. Luckily, the jinx was broken on Wednesday, November 29, 2006 at the NIPEX Joint Qualification System (NJQS) Awareness Workshop. The workshop was organized by Nigerian Petroleum Exchange (NipeX), a division of NAPIMS-NNPC and Achilles Information Limited, was held at the Golden Gate Restaurant, Ikoyi, Lagos. They held the first workshop in Port Harcourt on the previous Friday, November 24, 2006. The Lagos Workshop attracted over 300 service provider companies.
“For the first time in the history of Oil and Gas Industry in Nigeria, NipeX through the workshops brought together, a majority of Service Companies (Providers) in Nigeria. During the questions and answers session, Mazi Colman Obasi, CEO of Doubleday Expressions Limited, one of the leading consulting firms in the industry, raised the issue of Service Providers (SP) representation in the NJQS Steering Committee. Mrs. Unoh Adedeji, General Manager of NipeX, responded by saying that Service Providers were free to nominate their representatives into the Committee. That is the brief history of how OGSPAN started.”
He said: “PETROHUB is promoted by OGSPAN and we intend to partner with all stakeholders in the Industry to provide real-time and industry-wide Oil & Gas Marketplace.
“OGSPAN is our parent body that introduced this innovation to the Oil and Gas Industry in Nigeria.OGSPAN cardinal objective that sparked off the concept of Petrohub and others to encourage the harnessing of resources and technical expertise by members and the formation of alliances for competitive edge in the oil and gas marketplace, provide a common platform for the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry based Service Providers for the good of members and the value chain of oil resources on the Nigeria economy and the industrialization of Nigeria and become the nexus for the exchange of ideas and information for the development and promotion of local Nigerian content in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria”
He said: “Petrohub.com.ng is Africa’s/Nigeria’s No 1, Oil and Gas Marketplace with a mission to provide a real-time innovative technology marketplace where oil and gas suppliers, buyers and product owners and transporters interact and trade. PETROHUB major objectives are, to provide real-time electronic marketplace where depots owners, suppliers and buyers of petroleum products will transact business with minimal human interference, make the processes and procedures more efficient by providing live information and data on actual products volume available at the depots, live pricing, truck ordering and scheduling fleet tracking for potential buyers and promote the sales of products and services of our clients in a transparent manner.
He said, “it is meant to compete on the rate of learning by leveraging innovation and technology to identify and fulfil each individual customer’s changing needs and by deploying the best human and machines to unlock the full potentials of new technologies such as artificial intelligence and the collaborative ecosystems in the Oil and Gas Industry in Nigeria, consciously create both social and economic values to shape critical social issues that will increasingly and continuously improve our business sustainability in our environment and ecosystem and embrace new ideas and open communication practices and commitment to building diversity at organizational level to achieve innovation, resilience and unlock full potentials of diversity in the organisation.”
Mazi Obasi, added: “All Product Owners on our platform are thoroughly vetted before their products are listed for sale to buyers. Petrohub automates the payment of all the accrued service charges to all stakeholders. Our team facilities the fast loading of any product(s) purchased through our platform. In cases of product theft and under-delivery, the Buyer is refunded from the transporters’ fund (withheld as payment balance).Erring Transporters are sanctioned. We facilitate truck hiring, ordering and scheduling from different locations around the country. There may not be any other country in the world that has the type of challenges we have in our country. With Petrohub coming into play, you may soon walk into any petroleum products depots you only see trucks strolling in to load without people milling around.”
