Perpose Osaro Onaghise: The Oil and Gas Amazon with Footprint in Global Projects

By Fadekemi Ajakaiye

In the dynamic and demanding world of oil and gas, engineers and technicians who blend deep technical knowledge with hands-on field experience drive safety, efficiency, and innovation. This is the story of Perpose Osaro Onaghise, a drilling and maintenance professional who has built a remarkable career spanning 20 years at a global oil and gas company. With a strong engineering foundation and a track record spanning system testing, assembly and disassembly, service levels, calibration, environmental screening, modification, troubleshooting, and repairs, Perpose demonstrates how technical prowess, meticulous discipline, and a global mindset can shape successful outcomes in a complex, high-stakes industry.

Perpose earned an engineering degree focusing on mechanical engineering principles in 2003. Since then, he has built a solid understanding of instrumentation, control systems, hydraulics, electronics, and materials science with exposure to project life cycles, reliability engineering, and quality assurance, laying the groundwork for future field responsibilities.

In 2005, he Joined a multinational oil and gas company renowned for its integrated operations, global projects, and rigorous health and safety culture as a Maintenance Technician. He wasted no time to adapting with tasks that leveraged core engineering skills: interpreting schematics, supporting system testing, and participating in installation activities.

Early hands-on experience included small-scale assemblies and disassemblies of measurement and drilling equipment, service levels, complying with documented service level procedures and workmanship standards laying a practical foundation for more complex duties.
His professional success rests on a comprehensive set of capabilities that span the lifecycle of drilling hardware, measurement and maintenance systems.

System Testing and Verification

Perpose has led and participated in rigorous test programs for measurement systems, data acquisition, and telemetry equipment. He led the maintenance of Rotary Steerable tools making use of a unique database to perform predictive maintenance by eliminating downhole failures. He also led a maintenance team that coordinated failure investigation of downhole tools.
His impact in his organisation and recognition in the industry surged higher when he developed test plans, executed bench tests, simulated downhole conditions, and validated performance against specifications.
Perpose has also implemented traceable test records to ensure compliance with internal standards and external regulations.

Assembly and Disassembly

Between 2019 and 2022, he managed end-to-end assembly of downhole measurement tools, surface logging equipment, and associated rig instrumentation, Executed precise disassembly for maintenance, upgrades, or troubleshooting, documenting wear patterns and component life. He also led technology life cycle management failure analysis to root cause and failure Pareto for both shop and field failures saving the organisation billions of US dollars. Within the same period, he led continuous improvement of the process that govern the progress of implementation plans and also ensured the implementation of the TLM maintenance program and compliance with reliability centred maintenance system ( RCM) strategy through computerised maintenance system ( CMMS) and standard work adherence.
Perpose has employed tools, torque sequences, and cleanroom practices when required to preserve calibration and reliability in high stake projects.

Service Levels and Customer Support

He maintained and improved service level agreements (SLAs) with internal stakeholders and external clients, served as a trusted point of contact for field teams, operations managers, and client partners and also provided timely fault resolution, proactive maintenance scheduling, and post-service feedback loops.

Calibration and Verification

Through his hands – on experience, he conducted regular calibration of sensors, transducers, gauges, and telemetry nodes to ensure measurement fidelity, maintained calibration certificates, performed setpoint adjustments, and verified drift and repeatability. Perpose has also demonstrated his ability to implement calibration traceability to meet quality and regulatory requirements that earned his organisation recommendation from regulatory authorities.

Environmental Screening and Compliance

He has led a HSE culture for the maintenance team through an organisational empowerment team, performed environmental screening to assess equipment readiness for diverse geographies and climates, addressed temperature, humidity, dust, salt spray, and other corrosive factors common in offshore and desert environments and ensured compliance with company environmental policies, safety regulations, and international standards.

Modification and Upgrades

He spearheaded hardware and software modifications to improve performance, reliability, or compatibility with new data standards, evaluated field feedback to design practical upgrades that minimize downtime and maximize uptime and coordinated with engineers, clients, and field personnel to implement changes with minimal disruption to operations.

Troubleshooting and Repairs

Perpose led a team that diagnosed complex failure modes across multiple subsystems—mechanical, electronic, hydraulic, and software layers, utilized diagnostic tools, such as multimeters, oscilloscopes, and specialized downhole testing rigs and executed timely repairs or replacements, with meticulous documentation and QA sign-off.

In his 20 years career with a global operator, he delivered tangible outcomes that improved safety, efficiency, and data quality while supporting a diverse portfolio of projects.

Global Deployment of Measurement Systems

He has coordinated deployment of downhole measurement tools across offshore platforms, onshore fields, and remote locations, standardized installation and commissioning procedures to reduce variability and shorten ramp-up times and also achieved consistency in data integrity by enforcing calibration and testing protocols across sites. Led the yearly audit of machine shops both in Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroun and the United States from third party clients from 2017 to 2022 to improve their processes and to meet his organization’s customer satisfaction deliverables.

Reliability Improvement and Downtime Reduction

Perpose identified recurring failure modes in environmental and measurement assemblies; led root-cause analyses and design refinements, implemented preventive maintenance schedules and condition monitoring programs to anticipate wear and pre-empt failures and reduced unscheduled downtime by a measurable margin, translating to significant cost savings and safer operations.

Calibration Excellence and Data Quality

He established a robust calibration regime with transparent traceability and documentation, improved measurement accuracy and repeatability, directly enhancing reservoir modeling, production optimization, and drilling decisions and created dashboards and reporting templates to communicate calibration status to stakeholders clearly.

Cross-Functional Leadership

Perpose has acted as a bridge between field operations, engineering teams, procurement, and vendors, facilitated knowledge transfer through training sessions, manuals, and on-site coaching and mentored junior technicians and engineers, nurturing the next generation of the workforce.

Environmental and Safety Stewardship

He ensured compliance with environmental and safety standards during all activities, including installation, testing, and maintenance. Implemented risk-based approaches to equipment handling, with a focus on minimizing emissions, waste, and energy consumption and also contributed to continuous improvement initiatives that aligned with corporate sustainability goals.

His career spanned multiple continents, climates, and regulatory landscapes, enriching his perspective and resilience notable are that:
Offshore platforms in harsh offshore environments demanded robust equipment and rapid response to anomalies.
Onshore fields in varied geographies required adaptability to different grid systems, supply chains, and maintenance windows.
Cross-cultural communication and collaboration with multinational teams ensured that best practices were shared and standardized.
Clients and contractors management skills were honed to balance performance, cost, and safety objectives.

Perpose has garnered skills and practical expertise in Africa, UK, UAE and the US that have propelled his career to great heights through knowledge acquisition in Basic Offshore, Safety Induction and Emergency Training, People Management Course; Management Course Level 4, Advance Drilling System Level 3, Advance Drilling System Level 2 and Workmanship Level 1 Course. He has regularly conducted hands-on training for technicians, engineers, and operators, authored procedure manuals, troubleshooting guides, calibration playbooks to scale knowledge across teams and constantly encouraged a culture of learning, peer review, and continuous improvement.

Perpose has pursued professional certifications relevant to drilling, measurement, and instrumentation, maintenance and repairs and has maintained compliance with industry standards such as API, IEC, and ISO frameworks as applicable to the role. Above all, he has demonstrated a commitment to ethical practices, quality management, and safety excellence.

His personal, professional commitment and relentless focus on safety, quality, and reliability underpins every task. Perpose has an engineering mindset that embraces problem-solving, data-driven decision making, systematic troubleshooting and a collaborative approach that values input from field crews, engineers, and leadership.

This rare combination of technical depth, field experience, and leadership has enabled him to consistently deliver dependable results in challenging environments, earning respect across disciplines and locations.

Investing in continuous calibration and validation to maintain data integrity in volatile environments, building scalable processes and documentation that support knowledge transfer and standardization; fostering strong relationships with operators, clients, and cross-functional teams to align objectives and accelerate problem resolution as well as embracing environmental screening and safety as non-negotiable prerequisites rather than after thoughts and seeking opportunities to apply modifications and upgrades that deliver measurable improvements in performance and uptime have been his major conduits providing learning curves key to his continued career success.

From a solid engineering education to a 20 year career at a global oil and gas company, Perpose, the drilling, measurement and maintenance professional exemplifies how technical mastery, disciplined execution, and collaborative leadership can drive success in a challenging industry. Through system testing, assembly and disassembly, service level optimization, calibration, environmental screening, modification, troubleshooting, and repairs, he has contributed to safer operations, higher data quality, and increased efficiency across diverse projects and regions worldwide. Perpose’s story is not just about what was accomplished, but about how a commitment to excellence, continuous learning, and teamwork can propel a career to global impact.