My Goal of Acquiring a Phd in The Field of Oil and Gas Assets Management

Quoting the famous artist, Pablo Picasso: “Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.” It is for this reason that I, Oluwatobiloba Adeyemi a graduate of Geology department, University of Lagos wish to acquire a PTDF scholarship to further my long-term academic and career goals.

I shall highlight cogent reasons why I should be awarded this scholarship in subsequent paragraphs. I proceeded to study geology in the University of Lagos after a successful WAEC Certification Examination (with 6 distinctions).
My interest in the petroleum sector began to grow after a long, educative and interesting chat with renowned lecturer and geoscientist, Dr. Abraham Opatola. He described the intricacies of the industry and demystified its components and at the end, I had come to understand crucial aspects of the industry, ranging from the technical to business and logistics.

An internship in 2015 with the University of Lagos Geosciences workstation afforded me the opportunity to garner skills required in seismic interpretation, basin evaluation, petrophysics and research. My persistent hard work and dedication paid off as I was selected as one of the two undergraduates among a team of five to represent the University of Lagos in the Prestigious AAPG Imperial Barrel Awards Competition, 2016 of which we eventually made it to the National finals.

Despite unavoidable challenges, I graduated at top of my class with an average of 87.4% from the geology department. I have also forged ahead to achieve over 5 additional certifications in the field of Oil and Gas and Geographic Information Systems from bodies such as ESRI, IFP MOOC and Coursera. Passion for this sector drove me to undertake the responsibility of training other NYSC corps members and Industrial training interns in the field of petroleum geoscience at my place of primary assignment, Lagos State Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources. I am also a member of a number of professional bodies including; NAPE, AAPG and EAGE.

Asides the provision of a pristine opportunity to develop necessary skills and knowledge required contribute my quota to the Nigerian economy, the PTDF scholarship will go a long way in easing financial strains; being the firstborn among four children to civil servant parents. With a maximum crude oil production of 2.7 million barrels per day as at January 2018, Nigeria ranks as Africa’s largest producer of oil and the sixth largest producer in the world according to NNPC, it is apparent that petroleum will continue to be a major contributor to the nation’s economy. It is for this reason that I have chosen Petroleum Economics and management from IFP as my first choice course of study. I wish to combine the disciplined study of economic principles with a deep understanding of the dynamic and constantly evolving energy industry to ensure I contribute to the Nation’s adoption of best practices regarding formulating economic policies. I am strongly of the opinion that my course choice will augment my present technical skill set with key micro and macro modelling techniques that will boost my understanding and application of critical aspects of financial analysis. This academic qualification, once obtained, would afford me the chance to function in roles from technical to supervisory and managerial positions.

Finally, winning this scholarship will bring me one step closer to my long term goal of acquiring a PhD in the field of Oil and Gas assets management and returning to the academia to impart industry rich knowledge and experience on future generations.