Ejiofor Alike
The Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Local Content at the weekend commended Total Upstream Nigeria Limited (TUPNI) for its $16 billion Egina deepwater development and pledged its support for local content development in the project.
Speaking when he led the members of the committee on oversight visit to the $3.3 billion Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO) unit for the 200,000 barrels per day capacity Egina deepwater oilfield, the Chairman of the committee, Senator Solomon Adeola stated that the essence of the visit was to have first hand information on the FPSO..
“This is a wonderful investment coming to us a nation with a production sharing contracts between Total, inventors and Federal Government of Nigeria. If Nigeria can attract such huge project estimated at $16.3 billion; it shows we are moving in a right direction and growing our economy,’’ he said.
Adeola said the FPSO was the first project executed after the passage of the Nigerian Local Content Act, stressing that it is an indication that local content development has come to stay in Nigeria.
According to him, the real local content growth is about domiciliation and domestication of capacity in-country.
He said the committee would ensure full implementation of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act (NOGICD) passed by the national assembly.
According to him, the NOGIC Act Is already in operation, adding that the National Assembly is also planning to amend the act to address other sectors including the manufacturing, construction, information technology and others.
“We will ensure sure project in the future is fully domiciled in Nigeria to grow capacity building and local content development, it is also expected that by 2027 about 70 per cent of such project will be done in Nigeria. Today we here to see the six topside that was constructed in-country and the 12 done outside Nigeria but hope that if such projects comes on board again, all the 18 top side would done in-country to grow capacity.’’ Adeola explained.
In his remarks, the Managing Director of the company, Mr. Nicolas Terraz, commended the committee for its support and encouragements towards ensuring that the projected is completed within the time frame.
Terraz said work has commenced on the FPSO for the integration of six locally fabricated modules that would take place within the next six months.
According to him, the integration of the six locally fabricated topside modules at the SHI-MCI Yard before its final sail-away to the Egina field is a game changer as far as the execution of deep offshore oil and gas projects in the country is concerned.
“It is also a remarkable achievement in local content development in Nigeria. Being the first project to be launched after the enactment of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development Act in 2010, EGINA is advancing Nigerian content to record levels and has by far the highest quantum of local content completed for any oil and gas project in Nigeria, but also for Total’s projects worldwide,’’ he said.
The Total upstream boss said that several technological feats had been recorded by the various entities involved in the project.
Terraz said that the EGINA FPSO has been designed for 25 years of operations to produce about 200,000 barrels of oil per day at Plateaux.
Terraz said that the Egina field was discovered by TUPNI in 2003 within the Oil Mining License (OML) 130, some 200 kilometres south of Port Harcourt.
He said that the field is being developed by TUPNI in partnership with NNPC, CNOOC, SAPETRO and PETROBRAS.
