By Elijah Ugani
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Prof Offiong E. Offiong, declared open a Five-Day SEPAL Solver Well Reservoir Management (WRM) training/workshop organised by CypherCrescent in partnership with the University of Calabar.
The training which commenced on Monday 26th January 2026 will run through Friday 30th January, 2026, is holding at the conference hall of the faculty of Engineering, University of Calabar.
Declaring the training/workshop opened, the Vice Chancellor charged the over 40 participants made up of both lecturers and students of the faculty of Engineering and Geology department to take advantage of the opportunity provided by the training to learn the softwares that will prepare them for the industry after graduation.
The Vice Chancellor who was represented by the Dean, Faculty of Engineering, Engr Prof Fidelis Abam, welcomed the resource team to the University and commended CypherCrescent Ltd for choosing the University of Calabar for the novel and innovative approach to provide hands-on practical training for engineering graduates to enable them fit into the industry.
He appealed to CypherCrescent to sustain the partnership to ensure that the gap often created by graduates of engineering finding it difficult to cope with the technical knowhow in the industry.
On his part, the Lead Trainer, Engr. Lateef Lateef, commended the University of Calabar for providing the opportunity and the enabling environment for the hands-on practical training for the students and lecturers.
He noted that “This workshop is a train the trainers and so as participants, you must pay very particular attention to details and ensure that you understand the application of these softwares in programme design”.
Engr. Lateef further stated that the University of Calabar is among the few universities in Nigeria that this training is been held. He pledged the commitment of the trainers to the training and wished that at the end of the Five-Day section, participants should be able to use the softwares adequately for the benefit of the university and the nation.
On his part, the facilitator of the training, Mr Oli Olowhu, PhD, an Alumnus of the University of Calabar, urged the participants to take the training very seriously as any student who shows exceptional performance during the training session will have the opportunity to do internship with CypherCrescent and some Oil and Gas companies that are looking for thes skills.
He mentioned that two graduates of the Faculty of Engineering are already undergoing internship with an E & P company facilitated by him.
Dr Olowhu commended the goodwill of the programme Coordinator of CypherCrescent, Engr Thankgod Egbe, an energy expert who is also an indigene of Cross River State for graciously granting approval for the training to take place as a way of giving back to the society.
Dr Oli further disclosed that “the cost of training for each of the Two softwares is about 5,000USD, which means that each of the participants will have paid 10,000USD as training fees multiply by 40 participants (400,000USD), and the university is having this training at no cost”. Dr Oli stated that “this training will also contribute to national development as we need to train and maintain adequate manpower in other to contribute to the production target of 4,000,000 barrel per day production as proposed by the renewed hope agenda of Mr. President”.
The immediate past Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, University of Calabar, Prof Odey Osha, commended the goodwill of Dr Oli Olowhu for the sacrifices made to attract the training to the university of Calabar at a time that practical solutions are needed to bridge the skill gap between the industry and the university system.
He opined that “This training would not have come at a better time than now. The world is evolving. Our graduates over the past years find it difficult to fit into the industry after graduation. They are often times subjected to on the job training and majority of them find it difficult to scale through interviews into the industry. This training is very timely and I encourage the students to take it seriously”.
On sustainability, Prof Osha noted that “The lecturers and students that are currently being trained will have to cascade the training to others and CypherCrescent has graciously made commitment for a follow up mentorship”.
The SEPAL Solver and WRM training is an indigenous computational Mathematical engine designed to facilitate complex problem-solving simulations, data modeling, and algorithm and analysis software used by Oil & Gas Exploration & Production companies to understand the performance of their wells and environs.
The Five-day hands-on training which is divided into Monday to Wednesday (SEPAL Solver) and Thursday to Friday (SEPAL Well Reservoir Management -WRM), is designed to build practical competence in the use of SEPAL Solver for spatial analysis & environmental data processing, as well as introduce the participants to SEPAL Well Reservoir Management (WRM) concepts and applications. The Well Reservoir Management (WRM) training is a comprehensive, cloud based indigenous technology designed by Cyphercrescent Ltd for oil and gas asset management. At the end of the training, the participants will be able to integrate production, reservoir, geological, petrophysical and well intervention data to optimise oil and gas production, monitor well performance and proffer some solutions to reduce operating expenses in the oil and gas industry.
