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ENERGY WOMAN
““...we speak for all
indigenous players and not just our members.” Patricia Simon-Hart, Secretary PETAN, CEO Aftrac Ltd
P
atricia Simon-Hart is the founder and Managing D i rec to r of Af tra c Limited, an oil and gas service company that has been in operation for over 20 years. She is the current Secretary to the Executive Board of PETAN (Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria) and a cofounder/ Vice President of Women in Energy Network. The former Commissioner for Water Resources and Rural Development, to the Government of Rivers State (20092015) has over 30 years of experience in Management, Public Policy and Administration. She is a die-hard entrepreneur and strong advocate of women participation in Nigeria’s oil and gas space, particularly in the service sector. As AFTRAC boss, she leads her team to blaze trails in the areas of Surface Well Testing and Coiled Tubing services, Sand Management, Process Diagnostics, Inter-well studies and a range of technology driven solutions, among
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Majorwaves Energy Report
APRIL 2020, Vol 3 No 4
others. Excerpts of her interview with JEROME ONOJA. You’re the CEO of AFTRAC due to your out-of-the-box thinking. As a woman, what made you veer left when everyone else was going right? I am not sure which way is left or right, I have always believed I’ve been on the “right” path, and never really considered my gender in the equation.
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I started my business looking for unique technology and services to help E&P companies optimize production operations. I was actually running away from unprofessional business practices and competition in the ICT sector at that time, and came across some amazing technology for the
upstream oil and gas sector that we worked hard to introduce. We continued to expand our services from there. There are several opportunities in an emerging economy like Nigeria. Why did you choose a difficult terrain like oil well services; secondly, why did you choose to operate from the heart of Port Harcourt at a time when it was thought to be volatile? The main stay of the Nigerian economy is Oil and Gas, and so most sectors render services to the Oil sector directly or indirectly. I happened to be in the ICT sector and my main clients were Oil (Upstream and downstream) and Oil services companies. That’s how I got involved in the Oil sector, providing ICT products and services. I then moved on to other technology which was related to their core operations, Well Services. I had a choice of going into Procurement, Projects or Services, I choose Services and Well Services as they generally go on,
