Total’s $16 billion Egina FPSO project have left the port of Gohyeon, Geoje shipyard in South Korea on October 31st, 2017, sailing to Nigeria for the final integration. Confirming the development, Chief Operating Officer of Samsung in Nigeria, Mr. Frank Ejizu, said the sail of the FPSO was a great achievement for the oil and gas industry and Nigerian economy.
SHI won the contract to build Egina FPSO in 2013, a turn-key project in which Samsung covered the entire engineering, procurement, construction, transport, and commissioning of the 2.3 million barrels capacity FPSO for the Egina oil field, located in Oil Mining Lease (OML) 130, offshore Nigeria.
The Egina FPSO, built by Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) for Total Upstream Nigeria Limited (TUPNI) for the 200,000 barrels per day Nigeria’s Egina deepwater field, sails to Lagos for integration in the Samsung Yard (SHI-MCI FZE) in Tarkwa Bay, the first Floating Production Storage Offshore (FPSO) module fabrication and integration facility in Africa.
SHI has now successfully built three massive offshore projects. Namely, the Ichthys CPF, the world’s largest floating gas processing facility, which was delivered in April 2017 and Prelude FLNG, the world’s largest FLNG, left Geoje in June 2017.
Total’s Egina FPSO project is under the Nigerian local content regulations, and in executing the project SHI formed a joint venture (SHI-MCI) with a Nigerian local company, established a production facility in Lagos, Nigeria to meet the local content requirements. The remaining topside module integration and commissioning will take place in Nigeria for scheduled delivery in the second half of 2018. It will create thousands of job opportunities and will be promoting the Nigerian Local Content.
Following completion, the FPSO will be moored at the Total-operated Egina oil field, located some 130 km off the coast of Nigeria at water depths of more than 1,500 meters.
Apart from the FPSO, infrastructure on the field will consist of an oil offloading terminal, and subsea production systems that will include 52 kilometers of oil and water injection flowlines, 12 flexible jumpers, 20 kilometers of gas export pipelines, 80 kilometers of umbilicals, and subsea manifolds.
Managing Director and Chief Executive of Total Upstream Companies in Nigeria, Nicolas Terraz, confirmed to the media on the recent 2017 Nigeria Annual International Conference and Exhibition of the Society for Petroleum Engineers (SPE), that the Egina FPSO has sailed away from Samsung Heavy Industries yard in South Korea heading to Nigeria.
Represented by the company’s executive director in charge of corporate affairs and services, Abiodun Afolabi, he said that the FPSO will arrive in Nigeria after the fourth quarter where the six locally fabricated topside modules will be integrated on the FPSO at SHI-MCI Yard before final sail-away to Egina field, deep offshore Nigeria.
Furthermore, after the local integration of the six FPSO’s modules and over 8,000 tons of structures, the FPSO will sail away to the Egina oil field, which will add 200,000 barrels per day to Nigeria’s current crude oil production when it comes on stream in 2018.
The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), has commenced preparations to receive the vessel amid tight security and safety procedures.
The Director General, NIMASA, Dakuku Peterside, said the Egina project, is the first of its kind in the history of Nigeria, and will increase the knowledge base of NIMASA and ultimately fetch the country the much needed foreign exchange.
The Director General visited the Samsung Shipyard in the Samsung Heavy Industries in Geoje, South Korea to inspect the project. He said that the Total’s Egina FPSO Project is the first of its kind in Nigeria as it will increase knowledge base of inspection techniques, certification and rules for maintaining classification and ultimately benefit the Nigerian economy in terms of foreign exchange.
He also assured Total and other prospective investors that NIMASA would continue to create a conducive environment to build investors’ confidence to enable them come up with more projects.
He further commended Samsung and Total E&P for building confidence in Nigerian local content, and efforts to comply with the Nigerian Content Law. He also urged the Executive Vice President of Samsung to ensure compliance to the Cabotage Law and other enabling Nigerian laws when the FPSO berths in Nigeria.
