Annual Report 2018-2019

The West Africa branch of the Society for Underwater Technology was launched in May 2018. The branch currently operates in the Lekki area of Lagos State with three staff members who undertake responsibility for events management, marketing, administration, cleaning and general office work. Since its launch in May, the West Africa Branch has experienced a solid year in continuing to maintain its standing in the community and its operations.

The most significant event from last year was SUT’s partnership with TOTAL to run the signature Subsea Awareness Course for its engineers in Lagos Nigeria. The Subsea Awareness events continue to be very popular and the general feedback as to the quality and content of the course has remained very positive. We also participated in the National Association of Petroleum Explorationists Conference & Exhibition. The conference provided seminars and ran courses and technical events providing industry exposure and interaction.

The branch has also undertaken an educational initiative in partnership with the University of Nigeria Nsukka with a view to establish the University’s first Masters of Science in Subsea Engineering.

The Local branch have also supported the Oil and Gas Association of Nigeria (OGTAN) event with the theme “Human Capacity Development as a Driver for National Transformation: Issues and Possibilities”. This is geared towards fulfilling one of OGTAN’s key objectives – bridging the gap between Nigeria’s tertiary institutions and the oil and gas industry.

The committee remains strongly enthusiastic, imaginative and creative, and we welcome the fresh ideas of the new committee members. We are strongly seeking for Support and sponsorship from member organizations, industry, education and other learned societies, and we are optimistic getting desired support on a continuous basis. The new committee has been working solidly on the branch various activities and initiatives, with a good spread of participation across the committee member.

Our relationship with energy Institutions of higher learning continues to be strong, with the student chapters of the local branch of SUT to be established in African University of Science & Technology, University of Nigeria Nsukka, Federal University of Technology Owerri, Obafemi Awolowo University Ile Ife, University of Ghana and Nkwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology. We have continued our collaborative engagement with the Offshore Technology Institute UNIPORT and PTDF, while ensuring our respective identities.

Committee

Committee members continue to provide support to the branch. We would like to thank all committee members for their efforts in enabling us to start up and run the branch. Our Chair, Professor Anyasi, the Dean of Engineering at Ambrose Alli University, will be standing down due to his other commitments. We thank him for his contribution, and will seek a replacement in coming months.

Finance

SUT West Africa Branch achieved a small surplus of funds due to the running of unbudgeted two major training events. This will further enhance the branch standing to remain self-sufficient and to completely avoid indebtedness of any sort.

Technical Evenings, Courses and Seminars

SUT courses and technical evenings continue to attract great support. Our branch has focused on offering the subsea awareness course, resulting in the continued success of this event attracting delegates and providing financial surpluses for use in the core SUT activities and payments of bills.

So far, and since the launch of the local branch, the following events have been undertaken by the branch:

• Subsea Awareness Course – Specifically designed to meet the needs of the TOTAL Nigerian Engineers
• Subsea Production and Engineering Course – Delivered for the University of Nigeria Faculty of Engineering staffs. This is a collaborative effort between the University and The Local Branch to establish Subsea Engineering Programme

The Branch have also developed new courses that were organized and coordinated with the industry and assistance from the staffs and many of the committee members.

The courses developed are:

• Offshore Pipeline Design, Construction & Installation Methods
• Subsea Systems Integrity & Reliability Engineering
• Fundamentals of Subsea Engineering
• Flow Assurance in Subsea Production Systems
• Subsea Control Systems and Umbilicals
• Oil & Gas Processing Plants Design & Operations

The Committee is always grateful to all the presenters and industry partners for their time and efforts in bringing the newly developed courses and events to realization, and for those generous organizations who have rendered support in one way or the other to the local branch.

In addition, the following evening meetings were delivered by local experts and held in Lagos, and Port Harcourt:

• A day meeting on Deepwater Riser Technology – Lagos State
• A day meeting on Subsea Controls and Umbilical systems – Port Harcourt
• A day meeting on SUT presentation and Marine Renewable Energy Technology – Lagos State

Attendance for these meetings were relatively low since the branch have just started its activities again in West Africa, coupled with the fact that proper and adequate awareness was not in place. The Committee is, as always, grateful to all presenters and chairpersons for their time and efforts in bringing the evening meetings to fruition.

Membership

The branch attracted some new corporate and academic members over the year which is very encouraging.

Students have also been encouraged to sign up for SUT individual membership in that they are the future players in the subsea technology world.

Organisations with new Membership of the West Africa Branch:

• African University of Science and Technology Abuja
• Federal University of Science and Technology Owerri Nigeria
• Broron Oil and Gas Limited, Lagos Nigeria
• Obafemi Awolowo University Ile Ife Nigeria
• University of Nigeria Nsukka

We welcome Geodetic Offshore Services Limited & IESL back into membership.

Branch Administration

The West Africa Branch continues to be very effectively and efficiently managed by our three full-time personnel.

Pamela runs the administration, accounts and membership, while Sandra coordinates and organizes all our events with the assistance of Nengi. Their contribution to the growth and success of the branch over the past 10 months cannot be under-estimated.

Annual Dinner

The local branch is planning its first ever annual dinner for November of 2019. We intend to secure reasonable sponsorship and attendance for the annual event scheduled for Lagos, Nigeria

Year Ahead

The SUT West Africa branch faces several challenges in the coming year, in addition to continuing with our core mission. We have plans to run more courses and secure students, individual and cooperate membership. We intend to have strong numbers of student members in that they are the future players in the subsea technology world.

The committee have also agreed collectively to always get payments of courses and events before delivering them to clients as this will help eliminate the long wait for payments to come through for services rendered.

In order to realize adequate annual budget, the branch have reach out to the industry for sponsorship, and we do hope our request will be a successful one.

Yet again this year has proven to be hectic with many committee members working hard in projects and traveling frequently. The branch has remained structured with a focus on assisting the subsea industry in meeting the technical and personnel resource challenges ahead.

Subsea Awareness Course

The branch held a Subsea Awareness Course during the reporting year, with the help of TOTAL, who contacted the local branch to help deliver the course specifically for it’s staff. The branch engaged Jim Neffgen to deliver the course as he is a trainer with TOTAL.

We built on the previous experience of Branch members in delivering training courses to West African-based companies. We delivered a successful course to TOTAL and look forward to continuing this relationship.

Branch officers, and what duties they have performed:

• Ms Nengi Jumbo – Events coordination and Marketing
• Sandra Njoku – Events Coordination and Management
• Pamela Okojie – Administration, Accounts and Membership

Planned Activities

• Launch the Critical Requirements for Engineering Subsea Talents initiatives
• Focus on marketing to sign up new cooperate, students and academic membership of the SUT
• Establishment of the Student Chapters of SUT in UNN, UNIPORT, FUTO, AUST, KNUST and OAU
• Establishment of Subsea Engineering Programmes in the University of Nigeria Nsukka
• Run Subsea Engineering Course in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Accra, Ghana
• Run the Subsea Systems Integrity & Reliability Engineering Course
• Annual Dinner & AGM