Total has started production from the Egina field, 150 km off the coast of Nigeria, on 29 December 2018
The oil and gas company said in a statement that the Egina oilfield, which is located in 1,600 meters of water depths, is expected to produce 200,000 bopd, which represents about 10 per cent of Nigeria’s production.
Arnaud Breuillac, president exploration and production, commented, “Egina will significantly boost the group’s production and cash flow from 2019 onwards, and benefit from our strong cost reduction efforts in Nigeria where we have reduced our operating costs by 40 per cent over the last four years.”
According to Total, the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) unit used to develop Egina field is the largest one the company has ever built.
This project has involved a record level of local contractors, with six of the 18 modules on the FPSO were built and integrated locally and 77 per cent of hours spent on the project were worked locally, it reported.
The company noted that startup has been achieved close to 10 per cent below the initial budget, which represents more than one billion dollars of capex savings, due in particular to excellent drilling performance where the drilling time per well has been reduced by 30 per cent.
“Furthermore, some upside potential nearby remains to be developed and we are studying in particular Preowei discovery tie-back to the Egina FPSO,” Breuillac explained.
Initially discovered in 2003, the Egina field is the second development in production on the Oil Mining Lease (OML) 130 following the Akpo field, which started-up in 2009. Total stated that the Preowei field is another large discovery made on this prolific block for which an investment decision is scheduled for 2019.
Total Upstream Nigeria Limited operates OML 130 with a 24 per cent interest, in partnership with Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), South Atlantic Petroleum - SAPETRO Ltd. (15 per cent), CNOOC E&P Nigeria Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of CNOOC Limited (45 per cent) and Petrobras Oil and Gas BV (16 per cent).
