Nigeria’s oil industry records a new milestone as Total’s Egina arrives in Lagos

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Total Upstream Nigeria Limited, TUPNI and her partners happily announce the arrival of the Egina Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading unit (FPSO) to the shores of Nigeria from South Korea. The journey to Nigeria started on October 31, 2017.

The FPSO which is 330-metres long berthed at the newly built (under the Egina project) 500-metre FPSO integration quayside at the SHI-MCI Yard, Ladol island, Lagos where the integration of locally fabricated modules – a first for Nigeria and in fact Africa- will take place over the next few months.

The Egina field was discovered by TUPNI in 2003 within the Oil Mining Licence 130 (OML130), some 200 kilometres south of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. The field is being developed by TUPNI in partnership with NNPC, CNOOC, SAPETRO and PETROBRAS. It will add 200,000 barrels per day to Nigeria’s oil production (approximately 10% of the country’s total oil production).

Egina is the largest investment project currently on-going in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria. The project is expected to be completed in Q4 – 2018 within the initial budget of 16 Billion USD.

The arrival of the FPSO in Lagos for integration of the 6 topside modules at the SHI-MCI Yard before its final sail-away to the Egina field is a game changer as far as the execution of deep offshore oil & gas projects in the country is concerned.

In the course of the project several technological feats have been recorded by the various entities involved in the project, some of which include:

The drilling rig, West Jupiter set two consecutive world records for the number of drilling days expended on drilling Egina wells. First when well B-W25 was drilled in 22.7 days and then when well B-W09 was drilled in 20.9 days.

The UFR contractor, Saipem, successfully completed the installation of the first Production riser SHR COR 01 on 7th December 2017. This was the heaviest riser ever installed by Saipem in the company’s history.

The most significant difference between Egina and the other deep offshore projects by Total in Nigeria is the level of local content on the project. Being the first project to be launched after the enactment of the Nigerian Oil & Gas Industry Content Development Act in 2010, the Egina project has by far the highest level of Nigerian content of any project in Nigeria. While there has been a steady increase in the tonnage of project material fabricated in-country and the man-hours expended in-country from each project to the next, the most significant difference has been the integration of the six locally fabricated FPSO topside modules in-country. This is a first for the country and the African continent.

The Egina project is therefore a testimony to the fact that large deepwater projects can be developed with a very high level of in-country activities, thus fulfilling the aspirations and objectives of the Federal Government of Nigeria in terms of employment generation, capacity building and industrial capability development.

Total E&P Nigeria Limited (“TEPNG”), an affiliate of TOTAL S.A, has operated in the upstream sector of the Nigerian hydrocarbon industry for over 50 years and has added about 3 billion barrels of oil to Nigeria’s production from 1966 to 2016.

Incorporated in Nigeria in 1962, TEPNG has maintained strong and steadfast partnerships with the Nigerian Government, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and several indigenous companies, in developing the country’s hydrocarbon industry.

TEPNG operates and holds a 40% interest in the NNPC/TEPNG Joint Venture, producing oil and natural gas from several onshore and shallow water concessions. Another Total affiliate, Total Upstream Nigeria Limited (TUPNI), operates the Akpo field in OML 130 deepwater lease and is currently developing the Egina field, expected to come on stream in 2018 with a capacity of 200,000 barrels per day.

In addition, TEPNG has non-operated interests in the SPDC-operated joint venture (10%), the Bonga field (12.5%) and the Usan field (20%). Total also has a 15% interest in Nigeria LNG, which operates six LNG liquefaction trains on Bonny Island.

TEPNG is committed to working closely with its host communities and is supporting many projects in the field of health, education, infrastructure and economic development, through its sustainable development and community relations programmes.

TEPNG delivers world class energy solutions, adds economic value to the country, and promotes best practices in safety and environmental protection, business ethics and corporate social responsibility.

With a diverse work force of several nationalities and cultures working together, TEPNG is proud of its contributions to the socio-economic development of Nigeria.