Expert Bets on Data Integration to Make Oil Assets Bankable

**Peter Uzoho **

The upstream oil and gas industry in Nigeria must solve its data integration challenge to unlock reserves and attract financing, Innovation Director at CypherCrescent, Dr Nadia Albanna, has said.

In a chat with THISDAY, Albanna said the core problem facing oil and gas is not lack of data, but fragmented data and knowledge that prevents operators and investors from seeing the true reality of an asset.

“The key for this problem that we have in oil and gas is integration,” she said.

According to her, integration of data, integration of knowledge and translating that into the actual reality of the asset is central to improving asset performance and telling the story of an investable project.

She noted that making a project bankable and financeable requires building investor confidence that they have the full picture, including risk elements and uncertainties around regulatory environment, subsurface realities, construction and development challenges.

She described integrated technology solutions as critical to bridging the gap between technical understanding and financial decision-making.

On the growing conversation around artificial intelligence in the energy sector, Albanna said AI is a powerful tool, but its effectiveness depends on data readiness and local expertise.

She said a lot of data in Nigeria and other locations remain manual, fragmented and not collected in one place, requiring significant work in digitization and infrastructure for real-time data transfer and communication.