The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has announced existence of 13 billion barrels of crue oil Nigeria’s deepwater terrain and current daily production of 850,000 barrels from the 2 billion barrels of oil explored and developed fields. Deepwater oil blocks are those located in areas of water depth beyond 200 metres and extending up to 200 nautical miles seaward from the coasts of Nigeria.
Deepwater producing fields in Nigeria include Akpo,Usan and Egina of Total E&P Nigerias, Bonga of Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company, Agbami of Chevron Nigeria Limited among others.
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.
The Director of DPR Mr Mordecai Ladan who was represented by Deputy Director, Upstream, Mr. Enorese Amadasu disclosed in a paper presentation during the panel session organised by the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN) on “ Deepwater operations in Nigeria: The journey so far” at the 50th anniversary of the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, Texas, United States of America (USA).
According to him, today, we have about 13 billion reserves for deepwater and only two billion barrels was explored, so there is need to have more attractive fiscal, change regulatory regime, There is need to amend the policy that nobody brings third parties and investors who will bring floating production, storage and offloading vessels (FPSO).
Data obtained by Nigerian NewsDirect from GlobalData Upstream Analytics shows also that Nigeria holds the top spot among the ten countries with the largest remaining crude oil and condensate deepwater reserves, with 5.038 billion barrels expected to be economically recovered in the country. The US, Angola and Brazil follow with 4.739 billion barrels, 4.495bn barrels and 3.524bn barrels respectively. GlobalData estimates that the top ten countries hold a total of 25.881bn barrels of economically recoverable oil reserves.
GlobalData reports that over 84 per cent of remaining reserves held by the top ten countries are represented by conventional oil at 21.7284bn barrels. Oil reserves associated with conventional gas developments across the ten countries stand at 8 per cent (2.0795bn barrels). Close to 8 per cent (2.0735bn barrels) of remaining reserves are represented by heavy oil fields.
Ghana and Norway have the lowest break-even oil prices at $18 and $19 per barrel respectively, while Australia and the UK are the countries with the highest remaining break-even oil prices at $42 and $40 per barrel for deepwater developments.
However, Ladan disclosed that oil production from Nigeria’s deepwater province is currently 850,000 barrels per day, representing 40.47 per cent of the total production of 2.1 million barrels per day.
“Currently, total production is 2.1 barrels of oil per day (bpod) while deepwater is production is 850 bopd. Cumulative deepwater production as at December 2018 is 3.2 billion barrels.”
According to Ladan, Nigeria has 83 deepwater oil and gas blocks out of which 30 has been awarded and eight blocks out of the 30, are oil mining leases (OMLs) that have begun production. There, we have 53 open blocks to be awarded.
He said: “Successful progress has been made in growing Nigeria reserves and production from the development of deep offshore hydrocarbons since 2003. Technology has been the key enabler in converting resources into economical reserves. There abound ample opportunities to realize accelerated revenues and sustained investment in maturation of more than 40 billion barrels of oil equivalent resources presently untapped in Nigeria deep offshore area.
“DPR as a regulator, working with other stakeholders including the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), decided to go into deep water, when the inland and the offshore was already saturated. The only way to do that was to come up with Production Sharing Contract (PSC) agreement, and that was how 83 blocks were mapped in Nigeria deep water and 30 of the blocks was awarded. Eight of the blocks were awarded in 1993, eight in 2000 and other 14 in 2015.”
To unlock the huge potentials in the deepwater, Ladan said the Federal Government will create more attractive fiscal and regulatory regime, incentives based on reserves replacement, ensure accelerated lease renewals and encourage deep play exploration and reserves maturation.
Others measures include creating unique fiscal policy for unique emerging plays, responsive legislative environments and for gas commercialization, among others.
Source : http://nigeriannewsdirect.com
