By Ndubuisi Micheal Obineme
Abuja – TotalEnergies has been present in Africa for more than 80 years in exploration activities and Nigeria for almost 60 years. TotalEnergies has invested over $60 billion in exploration and other projects in Nigeria, as it plays a significant role in economic and local content development, contributing about 15% of the nation’s production.
This was disclosed by Victor Bamidele, Deputy Managing Director, Deepwater District, TotalEnergies, at the Nigeria Oil and Gas (NOG) Conference in Abuja, on Monday.
Bandele was represented by the Executive General Manager, Government Relations, TotalEnergies, Nigeria, Olalere Babasola, said it is necessary to share best practices and experiences at NOG to enable operators to learn from one another, adapt and quickly take actions that will sustain the industry.
Babasola revealed that TotalEnergies, as it is presently called, has been present in Africa for more than 80 years and has been involved in exploration activities in Nigeria for almost 60 years now. In the Upstream sector, the company has a broad and diversified portfolio in Nigeria, with activities spanning onshore, conventional offshore, deepwater and LNG.
TotalEnergies is proud of its strong partnership and has developed with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) including various partners, over the years.
The upstream branch plays a significant economic and social role in Nigeria, operating nearly 15% of the country’s production. Nigeria, as one of the company’s core areas of activities, is also crucial to the TotalEnergies Group, accounting for 12 % of its equity production.
In the last few years alone, TotalEnergies has invested approximately 10 billion US dollars in the country. Through decades of executing development projects, the company’s activities have contributed to creating jobs and developing human capacity in Nigeria.
Babasola explained that despite the challenging environment that the company operate in as an industry, TotalEnergies remains committed to investing in the country because it is strongly believed in the potential of Nigeria and Nigerians.
“This is why it has been quite active in recent years even in the face of understandable uncertainties.
“The company completed Egina at the end of 2018 and has been progressing well with the development of the Ikike project.”
TotalEnergies Outstanding Projects
Egina Project
In 2013, three years after the Nigerian Oil & Gas Industry Content Development Act became law, TotalEnergies took the Final Investment Decision to develop Egina.
The Egina field is located in Oil Mining Lease OML 130 and is approximately 200km offshore Nigeria. The offshore development comprises a new build spread moored FPSO (330 x 61x 33.5m dimensions with 240 POB and 2.3MBBLs storage capacity) connected through a sub-sea production system to 44 wells (21 oil producers and 23 water injectors) via Umbilicals, flow-lines and risers.
Egina is TotalEnergies’ third deep offshore FPSO project in Nigeria after the successful delivery of the AKPO project (2009) and USAN project (2012). These projects have brought a progressive increase in levels of Nigerian Content, and Egina, being the first major project launched after the enactment of the Nigerian Oil & Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act of 2010, has so far the highest level of local content of any FPSO project in Nigeria:
Employment in Nigeria during the life of the project: 47 million man-hours (77% of total project workload).
Fabrication: approximately 60,000 tons of equipment fabricated in Nigeria. 600,000+ man-hours of human capacity development training across Egina contracts.
Construction of new fabrication facilities and quayside; Upgrade of existing fabrication facilities.
On December 29, 2018, Egina first oil was achieved with the opening of the first production well on the South Loop. With a capacity of 200,000 barrels of oil per day, Egina has increased Nigeria’s oil production by 10%.
Ikike Project
Ikike field development lies within Nigeria offshore block OML 99 (Amenam-Kpono), situated 20 km offshore, in 20m water depth and approximately 15 km north of the Amenam complex. It is outside the AMENAM unitized area in a joint venture partnership with NNPC (NNPC-60% /TEPNG-40%).
The Ikike field is being developed as a satellite tieback to Amenam.
Despite its size and scope, our Nigerian Content objectives for Ikike are not any less ambitious.
The overall target is to achieve 90% Nigerian Content on Ikike with 100% of project management based in-country; 100% of detailed & basic engineering in Nigeria; 100% of procurement by local firms; 3,000 direct jobs; Refresher/On-the-job training for 53 NCDMB trainees; entry-level training of 80 Geoscience students as well as infrastructure development support to some schools.
The TotalEnergies Executive General Manager pointed out clearly that the company remains proudly committed to Nigeria and Nigerian content and will continue to act in ways that promote these ideals. “But it is now time to venture beyond Nigeria and foster intra-Africa business relations to consolidate on the gains of Nigerian Content. Nigeria can earn foreign exchange through the exportation of local content capacities, infrastructure and competencies within the continent of Africa.”