Nigeria’s crude oil production has gotten a boost as French oil giant, Total SA, on Wednesday said it had started production from the Egina oilfield.
Output from the oil field is expected to peak at 200,000 barrels per day of oil, equivalent to 10 percent of the country’s current production, Total said.
The Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr Maikanti Baru, on Monday said Nigeria’s crude oil daily production recorded, rose by 9% to 2.09 million barrels in 2018.
The Egina oilfield is located some 200 kilometres offshore from Port Harcourt at water depths of more than 1,500 meters.
“Egina will significantly boost the group’s production and cashflow from 2019 on-wards, and benefit from our strong cost reduction efforts in Nigeria where we have reduced our operating costs by 40 percent over the last four years,” Head of Exploration and Production at Total, Arnaud Breuillac, said.
Total is betting on profitable deep-water oil and gas fields in Sub-Saharan Africa, Brazil and the U.S. Gulf area. In Africa, the company is ramping up deep-water projects in the Republic of Congo and Angola.
Total forecasts output from deep-water projects will reach 500,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2020 and account for more than 35 percent of cashflow in coming years, compared with about 15 percent now.
Total also said it would take a decision this year on whether to invest in developing the Preowei field, located in the same block as the Egina field.
Total has for almost a decade been extracting oil from a third field in the block, Akpo. It holds a 24 percent stake in the block’s lease and is the operator. Its partners are state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp, China’s CNOOC, Brazil’s Petrobras and private Nigerian firm, Sapetro.