Nigeria Targets Additional 800,000 Barrels of Daily Oil Output From Foreign Companies
April 05 2022 - 2:25PM
Dow Jones News
By Obafemi Oredein
Special to Dow Jones Newswires
IBADAN, Nigeria--Nigeria plans to boost daily oil production by
adding 800,000 barrels from the projects of some international oil
companies that had stalled due to funding and other reasons, the
Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission said.
Gbenga Komolafe, chief executive officer of NUPRC, said Thursday
the government was relying on the lift in output to come from
projects including TotalEnergies SE's Preowei, Shell PLC's Bonga
South West Aparo and Bonga North, as well as other projects being
executed by other companies.
"Some of these projects, including the Preowei project, the
Bonga South West Aparo project, the Bonga North project, and a host
of others, when completed, all have the combined capacity to add
upwards of 800,000 bopd (barrels of oil per day) to Nigeria's
production figures," Mr. Komolafe said in a statement on NUPRC's
website.
He said Preowei is a deep-water hydrocarbon pool located north
of the Egina field in the Oil Mining Lease 130, off Nigeria with
more than 150 million barrels of oil and gas equivalent, which is
expected to pump about 50,000 bopd at its peak.
A final investment decision on Preowei was set for the fourth
quarter of 2020 but was stalled following its suspension that year
by TotalEnergies due to Covid-19 constraints, concerns about new
fiscal provisions in Nigeria's oil sector, as well as a fall in oil
prices.
Mr. Komolafe said Shell's Bonga South West floating production
storage and offloading facility, with a capacity to pump 150,000
bopd, is another project the government is relying on to boost
daily oil production by 800,000 barrels.
Bonga South West is expected to add about one billion barrels to
Nigeria's oil reserves. However, in February the contract for the
development of the floating production storage and offloading unit
for the project was delayed and the tendering process was put on
hold till 2024, Mr. Komolafe said.
Nigeria, Africa's largest oil exporter, has been underperforming
in oil production, and hasn't meet its production quota with the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries for several months
running. Nigeria's OPEC quota is about 1.7 million barrels a
day.
Nigeria currently produces around 1.4 million barrels a day,
down from its usual output of 2.2 million.
Mr. Komolafe said that with the NUPRC now empowered by the
Petroleum Industry Act, the government could push ahead with
development projects. The act was signed into law by President
Muhammadu Buhari in August with the aim of overhauling the
country's oil-and-gas industry.
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(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 05, 2022 14:10 ET (18:10 GMT)
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