Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources, Mr. Mordecai Ladan, has urged laboratory practitioners in the nation’s oil and gas industry to improve the quality of the work they do.
He gave the charge on Wednesday in Lagos at the second edition of the Stakeholders’ Laboratory Workshop, organised by the DPR.
He noted that the industry had witnessed increased local participation in oil and gas activities on the back of the Federal Government’s deliberate policy and action plan through the Nigerian content development drive.
“However, as we strive as a nation towards economic independence and sustainability, issues of quality take centre stage, and cannot be overemphasised.”
Ladan, who was represented by the Head, Safety, Health and Environment, DPR, Mrs. Caroline Sibeudu, told the practitioners that “reports and data emanating from your laboratories and environmental investigations guide policy and project design decisions, which have far-reaching effects on the ecosystem and our lives.”
He also said, “Just like in medical parlance where doctors are confronted with terrifying challenges each time a morbidly sick and speechless patient is wheeled in and often rely on laboratory test results to make the right diagnosis/decision, any wrong result could lead to death of patients. So also it is with the results you generate, as laboratory practitioners in guiding critical industry decisions. It is, therefore, absolutely imperative that we cultivate the culture of diligence and quality in our practices.”
Ladan said arising from the DPR’s regulatory oversight over the past two years and since the first edition of this workshop, some notable areas highlighted in the communiqué as requiring urgent attention of chief executive officers of laboratories, consultancy companies and laboratory practitioners were yet to register the desired improvement.
According to Sibeudu, Safety, Health and Environment unit has a full-blown laboratory session, which checks the quality of all the work done in the oil industry, especially for consultancy.
“We started this workshop in 2015 to be able to assess the quality of what we get from the labs and we want all the practitioners to come together as a body and listen to one another so that we continuously improve the quality of what we get from them,” she said on the sidelines of the event.
The Manager, Laboratory Services, DPR, Mr. Jerome Agada, said some non-professionals had found their way into the industry, moving around as consultants.