SNEPCO’s Bonga FPSO turnaround reinforces Nigeria’s position in deepwater environment — Bolanle
Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) facilities are among the most complex assets in the offshore oil and gas industry. Many FPSOs remain in service well beyond their original life span, operating in harsh marine environments while processing hydrocarbons continuously. This underscores the need in balancing production targets with asset integrity management.
However, embarking on FPSO turnaround maintenance will temporarily halt or significantly reduce production, creating substantial revenue loss. Even a few days of downtime can result in millions of dollars in deferred revenue and can further increase financial losses and disrupt production targets depending on the FPSO production capacity and prevailing oil prices.
In this exclusive interview, SNEPCo’s Senior Operations Manager and Bonga FPSO Asset Manager, Bolanle Odunayo-Ojo, talks to Ndubuisi Micheal Obineme, Managing Editor, The Energy Republic, explaining why FPSO turnaround maintenance should be seen as a long-term investment rather than a short-term revenue loss.
Notably, she discussed the risks of neglecting critical offshore assets, with emphasis on the engineering and safety upgrades carried out during SNEPCO’s Bonga FPSO turnaround maintenance exercise, and what lessons other African operators can draw from the Bonga experience. Excerpts:
TER: Nigeria temporarily deferred millions of dollars in oil and gas revenue during the Bonga FPSO turnaround maintenance. Why should the turnaround maintenance programme be considered a strategic investment rather than a revenue loss?
Bolanle: The turnaround maintenance should be seen as a strategic investment because it protects the long-term integrity, reliability, and productive life of one of Nigeria’s most important deepwater assets, rather than simply as a short-term deferment of output.
The 2026 programme was a statutory and integrity-assurance exercise designed to help the Bonga FPSO operate safely and efficiently for the next 15 years, while reducing unplanned deferments and strengthening overall asset resilience.
The scope of work went beyond routine maintenance and included statutory inspections, certification and compliance checks, major asset-integrity upgrades, engineering modifications, and subsea assurance activities. Those interventions are essential for a facility that processes and exports oil and gas from offshore Nigeria and has a capacity of about 225,000 barrels of oil per day and 150 million standard cubic feet of gas per day.
In that context, the programme is best understood as an investment in future performance: it supports safer operations, reduces the likelihood of unplanned outages, and helps prepare the FPSO for future demands, including its role in supporting the Bonga North development.
TER: What risks could Nigeria face if major offshore assets like Bonga FPSO do not undergo regular turnaround maintenance?
Bolanle: The turnaround exercise is one of the key actions to ensure safety, operational reliability, environmental performance and production continuity.
At an operational level, it helps us to maintain equipment uptime, which will mean sustained production with a positive impact on national revenue, energy security, and confidence in Nigeria’s offshore operating environment.
TER: As the Bonga FPSO Asset Manager, what are the key engineering and safety upgrades carried out during the Bonga FPSO turnaround maintenance exercise, and how does it reflect a shift toward sustainability-driven asset integrity management in the oil and gas industry?
Bolanle: The 2026 turnaround maintenance involved a broad package of engineering, inspection, and integrity work that goes well beyond what can normally be done during routine operations on a live offshore facility. The scope included statutory inspections, certification and regulatory compliance checks, major asset-integrity upgrades, engineering modifications to improve long-term operations, and subsea assurance activities.
In execution terms, the campaign brought together maintenance, engineering, operations, inspection, and construction disciplines, with more than 1,000 personnel working offshore and thousands more supporting from shore.
From an asset-integrity perspective, this reflects a more sustainability-driven approach because the focus is on extending the life of an existing asset, improving reliability, reducing unplanned deferments, and lowering the risk of incidents or loss of containment.
In other words, it is about getting safer and more efficient performance out of the existing infrastructure, while supporting long-term production and preparing the facility for future developments such as Bonga North.
TER: What are the critical success factors in delivering a safe, cost-effective and efficient turnaround maintenance programme on the Bonga FPSO?
Bolanle: The first success factor is rigorous planning and coordination. A turnaround maintenance campaign on an offshore asset of this scale requires detailed preparation, a strong sequence of work, and close integration across technical, safety, logistics, and support functions. The fact that the 2026 exercise was completed 11 days ahead of schedule and without a safety incident points to the effectiveness of that planning and execution discipline.
The second is collaboration. SNEPCo acknowledged support from partners, regulators, and industry institutions including NUIMS, NUPRC, and NCDMB, showing that successful delivery depends not only on the operator but on alignment across the wider ecosystem.
A third critical success factor is local capability. Of the 55 companies involved in the turnaround, 43 were wholly Nigerian, while eight of the 12 international service providers maintained operational bases in Nigeria.
More than 95% of the over 1,000 offshore personnel were Nigerians, demonstrating the depth of in-country expertise supporting safe and efficient delivery.
Ultimately, a successful turnaround depends on the combination of disciplined planning, strong safety culture, partner alignment, and a capable workforce that can deliver complex work to global standards.
TER: What lessons can other African operators learn from Shell’s approach to asset integrity management?
Bolanle: One of the clearest lessons is that asset integrity should be treated as a strategic discipline, not a maintenance event. SNEPCo positioned the Bonga turnaround as a statutory and integrity-assurance programme designed to extend asset life, improve resilience, and reduce unplanned deferments, showing that long-term field management begins with protecting the health of the core production system.
A second lesson is the value of disciplined execution. Delivering a major turnaround ahead of schedule and without a safety incident demonstrates that operational excellence comes from planning, coordination, leadership visibility, and an embedded safety culture.
A third lesson is that local capability can be a genuine enabler of performance. The strong participation of Nigerian companies and personnel in the Bonga turnaround shows that building domestic technical capacity strengthens delivery, resilience, and long-term competitiveness.
More broadly, other operators can take from this the importance of integrating safety, reliability, cost discipline, and workforce development into one asset-management philosophy rather than treating them as separate agendas.
TER: What are the long-term gains from the Bonga FPSO turnaround maintenance, and how will it impact Nigeria’s oil and gas industry?
Bolanle: The long-term gains begin with a stronger, more reliable FPSO that is better positioned to support sustained production from Bonga over many more years. The turnaround was designed to help the FPSO operate safely and efficiently for the next 15 years, while reducing unplanned deferments and strengthening asset resilience.
The impact also extends to future developments. A successful turnaround helps prepare the FPSO for the additional operational demands associated with Bonga North, which is a subsea tie-back to the Bonga facility with first oil expected before the end of the decade.
For the wider industry, the turnaround reinforces confidence in Nigeria’s ability to execute complex deepwater work to high standards. It also demonstrates the growing strength of Nigerian technical capability, with strong participation from indigenous companies.
So the long-term value is not only about sustaining one asset. It is also about supporting future production, strengthening local capability, and reinforcing Nigeria’s position as a serious deepwater operating environment, enabling SNEPCo to continue to contribute to national development and social investments.
