SNEPCo Commences 5th Turnaround Maintenance on Bonga
Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) has begun the 5th turnaround maintenance at Bonga and its crude oil export terminal. According to SNEPCo this maintenance is billed to have the work done in “record time”
This is another statutory activities that will ensure continuous optimum operations at the deep water field which began producing in November 2005.
SNEPCo said that this maintenance on the Bonga floating production storage and offloading unit (FPSO) began last week, May 21.
SNEPCo said it was working to complete the maintenance “safely and in
record time” a source told Reuters that the FPSO would be closed for
two weeks.
Bonga was scheduled to load four cargoes in June, or 127,000 barrels per day (bpd), up slightly from May at 123,000 bpd.
The 4th turnaround maintenance was done in March 2017 since Bonga
began production. Bayo Ojulari, Managing Director SNEPCo had said that
the exercise helped to ensure sustained production and reduced
unscheduled production deferments.
SNEPCo had recalled that the Bonga team after the 2017 maintenance of
Bonga had won the ‘Asset of the Year’ Award 2016 in the Shell Group,
followed by runners-up in Norway and Malaysia.
“We are pleased that the award recognised the continuing collaboration
towards optimum production with a focus on safety, cost and Nigerian
content development which will be invaluable in the maintenance work.”
Ojulari had said.
According to SNEPCo, the scope of the current Bongs maintenance includes statutory recertification and critical asset integrity activities. “And will run until July during which there will be a few days of total shutdown,” SNEPCo said.
Aside from the recertification, the turnaround maintenance is expected to involves inspection, testing and repair of equipment as well as engineering upgrades. A major focus is the Bonga floating, production, storage, offloading (FPSO) vessel, which is at the heart of Bonga operations. The Bonga FPSO has the capacity to produce 225,000 barrels of oil and 150 million standard cubic feet of gas per day.
Bonga is Nigeria’s first deep water development in depths of more than 1,000 metres, and is located 120km offshore Nigeria. SNEPCo expanded the project with further drilling of wells in Bonga Phases 2 and 3 and through a subsea tie-back that unlocked the nearby Bonga North West field in August 2014. Bonga Phase 3 achieved first oil in October 2015.
SNEPCo operates Bonga in partnership with Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Deep Water) Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Limited and Nigerian Agip Exploration Limited under a Production Sharing Contract with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)
