a). University of Benin
The University of Benin holds the license of operation of the Centre. It ensures the Centre operates in a peaceful, conducing learning environment at all times.
b). SPDC and its Joint Venture Partners:
The Centre is funded by SPDC and its Joint Venture (JV) partners which include NNPC Limited, TotalEnergies and Agip Oil Company. The NNPC/SPDC/TotalEnergies/Agip JV fund covers 80% of students’ tuition, staff salaries, remuneration for external SMEs and the running expenses of the Centre each year.
The Centre is envisioned to promote industry-academic linkage at its establishment. To achieve this, SPDC, as the operator of the Joint Venture provides the bulk of the Subject Matter Experts whose participation in knowledge delivery at the Centre gives our students a unique and competitive edge. In addition, SPDC has put in place an internship window for ¾ of our students on a yearly basis after the 12-month non-stop academic work. This provides opportunity for our students to develop further awareness in integrated workflows as they undertake “live projects” designed to add value to the business. In addition, SPDC and the JV also provides state-of-the-art facilities and other logistics to the Centre from time to time.
The Centre has been operating from a building donated by the University of Benin since inception, but SPDC and the JV recently (in July 2023) donated a legacy building constructed and fully furnished by the JV for the Centre.
c). Schlumberger Nig. Limited
The Centre has been collaborating with Schlumberger Nig. Limited in the provision of free license of the PETREL, TECHLOG and INTERSECT software worth over USD11m, and highly subsidized 3-week training of these software to our students on a yearly basis since inception of academic activities at the Centre in 2013. Schlumberger ensures that these licenses are renewed once every three years with recent updates. In addition, Schlumberger provides Subject Matter Experts for the delivery of a free 2-week lecture on Borehole Geophysics to the Centre at the beginning of the second semester of every academic session, including offering some spaces for internship placement for our students.
d). Halliburton Energy Services
Halliburton Energy Services provides SMEs for delivery of our Big Data module free of charge every year. The Centre recently signed an Agreement with the company for the donation of Geoscience, Drilling, Production, Reservoir Management and Reservoir Economics tools worth over USD43m. The Centre is currently (July 2023) in the process of installing these tools with the assistance of Halliburton’s personnel. The company also provides a few internship spaces for our students from time to time.
e). CypherCresent
The Centre collaborates with CypherCrescent, a Nigerian software company based in Port Harcourt, in the provision of SEPAL software for well surveillance and free training.
f). Shearwater-Harvex UGeosolutions
We recently expanded our stakeholder base to Harvex Geosolutions, Lagos and Shearwater GeoServices, UK, which through the pilot Shearwater-Harvex University Assistantship Programme in July 2023, donated a high-capacity Linux Workstation installed with the highly commercialized REVEAL software to the Centre to aid teaching and research in time and depth seismic data processing. This is an impactful collaboration since Unix-based Workstations and commercial-scale seismic data processing tools are uncommon in tertiary institutions, especially those in Nigeria.
g). Other Stakeholders
Other stakeholders that have supported, and continue to support the Centre include Energy and Mineral Resources, Degeconek, GCube, Laser Engineering Addax, NPDC, Chevron, Getamme Laboratories, CGG Geosolutions and Ikon Science. We collaborate with these companies in either internship placement spaces for our students or provision of state-of-the-art software, especially CGG Geosolutions and Ikon Science. We also have a few Subject Matter Experts in TotalEnergies who deliver modules for the Centre free of charge.