Nigeria is one of Africa’s major oil and gas producing nations, with petroleum operations supporting a significant part of the country’s industrial and economic activity. Behind the production figures and major offshore facilities, however, are technical decisions that receive far less public attention: determining whether crude meets required specifications, whether fuels are suitable for offshore operations, whether process fluids pose integrity concerns, and whether equipment is suited to the hydrocarbons it will actually encounter.

For two decades at Chevron Nigeria Limited, Maroof Ayowale Adegoke has worked within this analytical side of petroleum operations. His experience spans petroleum-quality analysis, crude-oil testing and certification, offshore fuel analytics, oilfield chemical evaluation, pipeline-fluid assessment, environmental monitoring, and water systems.

One assignment provides a useful window into how this work connects with larger engineering decisions.

Chevron Nigeria’s Okan Gas Gathering and Compression Platform (GGCP) is an offshore facility associated with the gathering, compression, and treatment of natural gas. Publicly documented engineering work on the facility has included expansion of its gas-handling capabilities and modification of the existing flare system to accommodate changing operating conditions.

When deterioration of the flare tip created the need for replacement, one of the technical questions was fundamental: What exactly would the replacement equipment be required to handle?

Answering that question required characterisation of the hydrocarbon gases flowing through the flare system. Adegoke’s role involved compositional analysis of the relevant gas streams to provide technical information required by the equipment manufacturer.

In this interview, he discusses the Okan assignment and the broader role analytical professionals play in the decisions behind complex petroleum operations.

At Okan, why was it necessary to analyse the flare gas before the deteriorated flare tip could be replaced?

A flare tip is not selected simply because it physically fits an existing installation. It has to be suitable for the gases it will handle and the conditions under which the system operates.

At Okan, the flare system received hydrocarbon gases under different pressure conditions. The equipment manufacturer therefore needed reliable information about the composition of those streams. My responsibility was to analyse the gases and provide the compositional information required to understand what the replacement flare tip would encounter in actual operation.

That is where laboratory analysis became part of a much larger engineering decision.

What did your analysis tell the engineers and equipment manufacturer that they could not simply determine from the existing equipment?

The important issue was the actual composition of the streams under operating conditions. Existing equipment specifications can tell you how a system was designed, but analytical data tells you what the system is actually handling.

We were dealing with both low- and high-pressure flare streams, so the work required more than producing a generic hydrocarbon analysis. The information had to accurately characterise the relevant streams so that the OEM and other technical personnel could evaluate the replacement against the facility’s operating requirements.

For me, this is an important distinction in petroleum laboratory work. The objective is not simply to produce an accurate result. You need to understand why the result is being requested and what technical decision will depend upon it.

A project like this would involve engineers, operations personnel, contractors and the equipment manufacturer. How did laboratory work fit into that larger team?

Each discipline had a different responsibility. The engineers and OEM were responsible for their respective design and engineering functions. My responsibility was the analytical characterisation of the process streams and ensuring that the information generated from that work could be properly understood within the operating context.

That required interaction beyond simply sending out a laboratory report. If an engineer or manufacturer is going to use analytical information in making an equipment decision, the analyst has to understand where the samples originated, the process conditions they represent, and the significance of the results.

Okan was a good example of the laboratory functioning as part of an integrated technical system rather than as an isolated testing function.

Was Okan an isolated experience, or has your work regularly connected laboratory findings with operational decisions?

It has been a recurring part of my work. In crude-oil testing and certification, analytical results help determine whether crude meets the specifications required for subsequent handling and commercial movement. In aviation and marine fuel analysis, the laboratory supports fuel-quality decisions for transportation serving offshore operations.

I have also worked on pipeline-fluid corrosivity evaluations, where analytical information can contribute to decisions concerning asset integrity, and on spill-response and remediation assignments, where laboratory findings help establish environmental conditions and support the response process.

The technical question changes from assignment to assignment, but the principle remains the same: the laboratory produces evidence that another part of the operation may have to act upon.

What have those different assignments taught you about the expertise required of a petroleum laboratory professional?

Knowing analytical chemistry and instrumentation is essential, but it is not sufficient by itself. You also need to understand the petroleum system around the sample. A result concerning crude quality has a different consequence from a result concerning aviation fuel, a corrosive process fluid, an oilfield chemical, or an environmental sample following a spill.

Over the years, working across these areas has required me to connect analytical science with petroleum quality, environmental considerations, process conditions, and operational requirements. That broader understanding affects the questions you ask, how you interpret results, and how effectively you communicate them to the people who have to make the next decision.

Nigeria’s petroleum industry depends on increasingly complex infrastructure. Where do you see the role of analytical professionals within that system?

The laboratory is sometimes viewed as a supporting function because much of its work happens away from the visible production equipment. But many important operational decisions depend on knowing precisely what is happening chemically within a system.

Is the crude within specification? Is the fuel suitable for its intended use? Is a process fluid contributing to corrosion? Is an oilfield chemical appropriate for the application? What does environmental testing show after an incident? What are the characteristics of the gases that a piece of equipment must safely handle?

Those questions begin with analytical evidence.

The Okan assignment demonstrated that clearly. My work began with the composition of flare-gas streams, but the reason the analysis mattered was that the information had to support a real equipment decision on an operating offshore facility.

That is ultimately where I see the value of petroleum laboratory work: not simply in generating accurate data, but in producing information that allows complex operations to make informed technical decisions.