The Centre offers Master’s Degree in: –

  • Integrated Petroleum Exploration and Evaluation Studies (Geology Option)
  • Integrated Petroleum Exploration and Evaluation Studies (Geophysics Option)
  • Integrated Petroleum Engineering and Production Studies

These programmes are aimed at developing skilled professionals in all key areas in the Oil and Gas sector (Exploration, Appraisal, Development and Production) including Geosciences and Petroleum Engineering.  On graduation, the students would have acquired the requisite skills to make them function effectively in the industry as young professionals with minimal industrial new-hire training.  The training programmes offered at the Centre ensure that the graduates are well equipped with the in-depth knowledge of the up-to-date concepts and skills, current technologies and methods.

Team working, communication and leadership abilities are part of the emphasis. These make the graduates functional and productive in the multi-dimensional work place environment.  Significant emphasis is placed on multidisciplinary approach necessary for solving integrated subsurface problems in Geosciences and Petroleum Engineering. Self-development training is part of an integral part of the program, designed to mould the students with the right attitudes and behaviour that are important in the industry workplace.  These enable the students reach their full potentials.  These soft skill sets are delivered by professionals from the Oil and Gas Companies as well as a well-chosen set of successful individuals with active industry and academic experience who can be seen as ‘role models’ and mentors.

The excellent facilities available at the Centre, as well as the overall design of the program courses, the delivery framework which has been benchmarked to meet the highest international standards, as well as the active participation of the industry Subject Matter Experts give CoE a unique and competitive edge.  In today’s competitive world, the right blend of learning objectives embedded in the curriculum of programs offered in the Centre and backed up with the latest technologies enable CoE to deliver quality and excellent learning for students that can compete favourably in the global market at the end of their training.

The success rate of the Centre’s graduates since inception, measured by how successful our graduates have been securing jobs after receiving our training is shown in Table 1. The Table shows that as of today (April, 2023), the Centre has graduated nine (9) sets comprising a total of 123 students. 82% of this number are gainfully employed, with 41% currently on tenured technical (some already on very senior) positions in major oil and gas companies in Nigeria, 20% are in the academia (some already Senior Lecturers in some Universities), while 22% are either in Government establishments or on Private Practice. Of note is the 86% job placement success rate of our recent graduates, i.e., the post COVID-19 (2021/2022) set, not minding the current rate of unemployment in Nigeria. This set graduated in September, 2022, and five (5) of them are already on tenured positions in the Oil and Gas companies as Trainee Processing Geophysicists, Trainee Geologists, and Petrophysicist.

Although the primary objective of the Centre is to produce industry-ready and highly qualified graduates that would be able to perform adequately in the industry workplace upon graduation, it also trains the students to be skilful in communication, presentation and research. A handful of our graduates interested in the academia, are at the moment at various stages of completion of their PhDs in reputable Universities in Canada, the United States of America, United Kingdom and Middle-East.  Some of them on teaching appointments in Nigerian Universities are already Senior Lecturers in those institutions. Thus in terms of contributions to nation-building, the Centre has lived up to the objectives of its establishment over the years.

Table 2 shows the distribution of Industrial Training placements since inception.  The management of the Centre continues to strive hard to get placements for all the students with the assistance of the major stakeholders who oblige us with their placements.

We place emphasis on our Industrial Training for the students to understand the subsurface concepts, advanced skills acquisition and to gain competence in current Oil and Gas technologies, as well as to develop further awareness in integrated workflows through implementation of “live projects’ for a focused research study. These projects are carried out in the industry workplace and are supported by industry in-house SMEs with live data sets donated by the industry stakeholders using their current technologies and hardware that is available in the companies.  Periodic and regular visits from the academic staff of the Centre ensures the process and milestones were adhered to in order to meet the academic standards of the University.  Overall, excellent feedbacks have always been received from the Companies.  These feedbacks help to re-emphasize the learning strategy and content which the Centre of Excellence sets for “young professional’ for the industry.

The Centre of Excellence relies greatly on a broad industry participation through various ‘partnering and support strategies’, for example, sponsorship and/or adoption of courses – Shell, Schlumberger, Halliburton, ADDAX and recently TotalEnergies, etc; students’ sponsorships – PTDF, etc;  provision of new technologies – Schlumberger, CGG Geosolution, Ikon Science, Cypher Crescent, etc; Live data – Industry, Books and Research materials – Industry and Individuals; Infrastructure for the Centre as well as other areas of choice to facilitate the attainment of the goals of the Centre.  The management of the Centre, from time to time, sends out proposals for support and partnering to potential stakeholders including industry and government, in a bid to expand the stakeholder base of the Centre and ensure its continued sustainability. We encourage industry participation in whatever form that is beneficial to the parties

Currently, the Centre is being supported by the Management of the University of Benin and the NNPC, Shell, TotalEnergies and Agip JV. The Centre is solely funded by SPDC and its JV partners, and in addition, SPDC provides the bulk of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) for the delivery of most of the modules offered by the Centre. Other stakeholders which support the Centre include Schlumberger Nigeria Limited, Halliburton Energy Services and a host of other companies (Table 3). The Petroleum Technology Development Fund at some time extended the Local Scholarship Scheme (LSS) to the students of the Centre.