Describe the most difficult technical problem you have had to solve.

What was the

situation like and what did you do? Would you have done anything different?

Situation: Burial of Subsea pipelines (4”, 8”, 10” 14”) and umbilicals (6”) two meter deep offshore West
Africa

Issues: There was a lot of pipelines crossing each other and the different sizes meant there was going to
be different ways of handling each individual pipelines.

Action: The Company I was working for had not been involved in this kind of project and didn’t have
any reference document as a starting point. I was assigned to do a research and come up with an
optimum solution for this project.

I conducted some research and found out that there are two ways which can be used to bury
pipelines; using an underwater plow system (very large equipment with two blades fixed in a
frame, drawn by vessel to dig a trench beneath the pipeline) or using an underwater jetting system
(a machine that shoots out water through nozzles at high very high pressure, thereby displacing
the soil beneath). The issue with using the plow system was, the pipeline crossings (When two or
more pipelines lay on top of each other) will be difficult to bury, and it will involve using another
equipment to solve the pipe crossing. The mobilization cost for this system was going to be
£500,000.00 and the daily rate for this equipment was £40,000.00. This cost and the system
wasn’t the optimum so we move to option two. The second option was to use and a jetting
machine, this option was very effective for 4”– 8” pipeline/ umbilical but needed multiple passes
to be able to bury > 8”. The issue we had with this method was, it wasn’t going to backfill the
already dough trench, which was a requirement for this project. The third option I came up with
was a gator system that will involve a lot of engineering modification to be able to achieve the goal.
The gator system had the capability of both jetting and backfilling, its greatest advantages were
the ability to pick up the pipeline, jet under the pipeline, bury and backfill all in one pass.

Issues I faced with this system was because the soil was slightly cohesive I had to size a bigger
pump for the jetting system. Secondly, because we had different sizes of pipeline and umbilical, I
had to design (ANSYS), draft (Auto-CAD) and fabricate (GD&T) clamps that will be used for the
different sizes we had on the project. This clamp was what the gator used to pick up the pipelines.
The mobilization cost for this equipment was $30,000.00, modification cost $10,000.00 and
daily rate was $2,000.00 and the company that owned the equipment were willing to write off the
cost for demobilization which was also $30,000.00 if we were willing to share our innovative
documents for the modification and the clamps which we fabricated
Lesson Learnt:

What I would have done differently for this project would have been to design one clamp system
to handle all pipeline and umbilical size. The time spent on retrieving the gator, changing the
clamp and redeploying it (3hrs) was very significant.

Three hours might seem insignificant but this is the breakdown of the project; we ran a 12hr shift
everyday offshore and this project ran for 11 months (330 days). Total Running cost per day was
about $100,000, the vessel is the chunk of the money ($70,000). Three hours of idle time through
the 330 days sums up to 82.5days which sum up to $8,250,000 of cost which could have been
avoided if we came up with a better design.

Describe the leadership position that you are most proud of and describe what were your
biggest obstacles in that position? How did you overcome those obstacles and what did you
learn from them?

Situation: Organizing an ROV (Remote Operated Vehicle) competition on campus through the Society
of Underwater technology.

About: This event was designed for TAMU students interested in ROV design and controls, engineering,
marine sciences, technology, and/or geosciences with the aim to challenge students in a unique way
while also promoting creativity, leadership, and teamwork.

Obstacles: The obstacles I met on this project was working with different students class and personal
schedule, coming up with different obstacles that will involve students using their engineering
skills to solve the problems presented to them during the competition

Action:

I was the president of this society on campus and it was my duty to make sure this event
was a success for us as a student organization, our sponsors, and the university because
this event was televised by the local news in College Station. Due to the diversity of the
group, and different availability times that each officer was willing to meet, meant me
taking much of the load while also taking 11 hours of graduate classes. I figured that it
 won’t be the best event if I solely work on this, so I formed committees with officers which
had similar availability times and delegated tasks to each committee. This removed the
burden of officers missing classes or work to come to the general meetings.

The each committee had a leader who reports to me on the progress on their task based
on the agreed schedule. I also had my committee, which was in charge of design the
obstacle course for the competition. I selected the committee to be very diverse so it won’t
have solely an engineering line of thought. My committee was made up of three
engineering student, two geosciences student, one oceanography student, and also staffs
from the pool center. We came up with different task that was going to simulate different
learning outcomes for the students like;

 learning how to actuate a valve in water depths of greater than 5,000’

learning how to make equipment connections in situations where they can only rely on
cameras due to poor visibility

learn how to design and manufacture tools, to help them carry out their tasks more
efficiently

Learn how to work with a diverse group with different skill set

Learn how to design a neutrally buoyant ROV

We also came up with an idea of pairing each group with an industry mentor to give the
students an idea of how to think about each individual problem, analyze the problem and
come up with an execution plan quickly.

Under my leadership, we successfully executed this event/competition and it was a great

success for the society, sponsors and Texas A&M University global reputation.

Lesson Learnt:

I needed to have allocated more time for teams present

 What they learnt from the experience

 What they learnt from others
 Their plans for second attempts
 What they built & Why
 How well it worked & Why
 What revisions they made & why

If the people who know you well were asked why you should be hired, what would they say?

Obi is a hard-working self-starter, who invariably understands exactly what a project is all about from
the outset and how to get it done quickly and effectively. He is a resourceful, creative and solution-
oriented person who is frequently able to come up with new and innovative approaches to his assigned
projects. He functions well as a team leader when required, and also works effectively as a team
member under the direction of other team leaders.

Obi also has a solid background in improving engineering processes, enhancing product design
capabilities and streamlining productivity through innovation.

Lastly, his core values are honesty, integrity, and respect for people.