Nigeria’s deepwater oil field, Egina, has achieved first oil production, raising the country’s daily oil production above 2.09 million barrels in December 2018, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has announced.

Located some 130 kilometers off the coast of Nigeria at water depths of more than 1,500 meters, the Egina oil field is one of Total's most ambitious ultra-deep offshore projects. Primarily developed locally to accelerate the pace of Nigeria’s industrial fabric and the transfer of technology, the project will produce 200,000 barrels of oil per day, around 10% of the country’s total oil production.

OML 130 Block location Map source: Total

The Egina field is located at water depths of between 1,400 and 1,700 meters, 200 kilometers offshore from Port Harcourt. It is operated by Total, which has a 24% stake, in partnership with NNPC, CNOOC, Sapetro and Petrobras.

The project is based on a subsea production system connected to a FPSO (floating production, storage and offloading vessel) designed to hold 2.3 million barrels of oil. Weighing close to 220,000 metric tons and measuring 330 meters long by 60 meters wide, the Egina FPSO is the largest ever built by Total.

“Total is proud to deliver a project of this size under the initial budget and to contribute to the development of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector by generating employment as well as building industrial capability. 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% over the last four years,” stated Arnaud Breuillac, President Exploration & Production. “Furthermore, some upside potential nearby remains to be developed and we are studying in particular Preowei discovery tie-back to the Egina FPSO.” 

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. 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% interest, in partnership with Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), South Atlantic Petroleum - SAPETRO Ltd. (15%), CNOOC E&P Nigeria Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of CNOOC Limited (45%) and Petrobras Oil and Gas BV (16%). 

Total, the Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board (NCDMB) and the main project contractors have set themselves an ambitious objective: to train more than 200 Nigerian students as engineers and technicians, in order to develop their skills and improve their career prospects.

Today, more than half of the people involved in building the project infrastructure are Nigerian, and close to 75% of the hours worked on the project have been onsite in Port Harcourt or in Lagos.