Twenty years
after it was discovered, the Aje field located in Oil Mining Lease 113 has
achieved its first oil, putting Lagos on the list of oil-producing states in
the country.
The
milestone is coming after several missed targets for the achievement of first
oil, the latest being March this year.
Yinka
Folawiyo Petroleum Company Limited, a wholly-owned indigenous firm and operator
of the OML 113 offshore Lagos, on Tuesday announced the commencement of
production of crude oil from the field. Other partners are New Age Exploration
Nigeria Limited, EER (Colobus) Nigeria Limited, Pan Petroleum (Panoro Energy)
Aje Limited and PR Oil & Gas Nigeria Limited.
Panoro had
in an update posted on its website on April 20 said the final hook-up
procedures were in progress with a view to bringing the wells into production
shortly.
The YFP said
after over 25 years of exploratory, appraisal and developmental activities, it
had successfully pioneered the opening of the Frontier Benin Embayment,
describing the Aje field as the first to record production from this part of
Nigeria and the first production outside of the Niger Delta.
It said the
inauguration of the Front Puffin Floating Production, Storage and Offloading
vessel was successfully completed after its arrival in Nigeria on March 16,
2016.
Oil produced
from the Aje field will be stored on the Front Puffin, which has production
capacity of 40,000 barrels of oil per day and storage capacity of 750,000
barrels, according to the YFP.
The
Chairman, YFP, Mr. Tunde Folawiyo, was quoted in a statement to have said, “The
attainment of this milestone is indeed a laudable achievement not just for the
YFP, but for the Nigerian oil and gas industry as a whole and indeed Lagos
State, which can now be addressed as an oil-producing state.”
He said
recording the achievement in the present global oil climate, together with the
peculiar challenges of the field, was clearly a no mean feat.
“We are very
proud of and appreciate the efforts, determination and commitment of the entire
Aje project team, past and present; the constant support from our regulators,
the DPR and Ministry of Petroleum; and our financiers. We believe this crucial
support will spur us on to even greater achievements,” Folawiyo added.
Aje is an
offshore field located in OML 113 in the western part of Nigeria in the Dahomey
Basin. The field is situated in water depths ranging from 100 to 1,000 metres
and is about 24 kilometres from the coast. It contains hydrocarbon resources in
sandstone reservoirs in three main levels – a Turonian gas condensate
reservoir, a Cenomanian oil reservoir and an Albian gas condensate reservoir.
The joint
venture partners had in October 2014 taken the final investment decision to
develop the first phase of the field.
They
submitted the Field Development Plan to the Department of Petroleum Resources
in January 2014 and it was approved in March, with first oil expected late in
2015.
Yinka
Folawiyo Petroleum was granted the Oil Prospecting License 309 in June 1991 as
a sole risk contract under the Federal Government’s Indigenous Allocation
Programme, which was put in place to encourage the development of a
locally-owned and operated Nigerian upstream oil industry.
The company said
following the acquisition of 2D seismic data in 1994/95, and the drilling of
the Aje-1 well in 1996, the field was discovered, adding that a second well,
Aje-2, was drilled in 1997.
After the
successful drilling and testing of both wells, OPL 309 was converted to OML 113
in 1998, with an initial term of 20 years, it said on its website.
Culled from
PUNCH
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