Our activities in Nigeria are regulated by the Production Sharing Agreement (PSA), a series of concession contracts and a service contract whereby we act as a contractor on behalf of the state-owned company. In October 2019, just three weeks after the well was completed, we began producing gas and condensates from the discovery of Obiafu 41 in the Niger river delta. The corresponding time to market was possible only thanks to our new integrated model, which calls, on the one hand, for the various disciplines to work in parallel from as early as the exploration phase, and on the other hand, for the synergies that can be achieved with neighbouring production plants to be exploited. The discovery concerns a hydrocarbon deposit in the form of some 28 billion m3 of gas and 60 million barrels of condensate. We will allocate a significant proportion of this gas to the domestic market in order to improve the availability of electricity on a local level. Once the well ramp-up phase is complete, production levels will reach around 3 million m3 of gas and 3,000 barrels of condensate per day. We will treat the gas produced at the Ob-Ob plant - a hub operated by Eni - before it is shipped off to the Okpai plant - the first independent power plant and one of the most efficient in the country -, also operated by Eni. Development activities in 2019 concerned the increasing generation capacity of the combined cycle power plant at Okpai to achieve about 1 GW.
Development activities in the country in 2018 focused on blocks OML 60, 61, 62 and 63, of which we operate 20%. We have primarily launched workover and rigless operations for maintaining the production profile and maintaining and restoring facilities damaged through sabotage or bunkering. We also completed the water injection project for the Ebocha field in block OML 61, enabling us to achieve a reinjection capacity of approximately 30,000 barrels of production water per day, as well as the phase 2 operations at the Okpai power plant to double the installed capacity of block OML 60. Furthermore, we completed drilling activities to increase production and workover operations in 2018 with a view to curbing the natural decline in block OML 118, in which we have a 12.5% share, and the Abo field in the OML 125 operated block, of which we are the sole operators. We also completed the associated gas development projects - the Forkados Yokri Integrated Project in block OML 43 (in which Eni holds a 5% stake) and the Gbaran phase 2A/2B and SSAGS project in block OML 28 (in which Eni also holds a 5% stake). The gas produced here, too, will be destined for the domestic market.
In January 2021, Eni and the partners divested the onshore production and development block OML 17 (Eni’s interest 5%). Development activities of the operated OMLs 60, 61, 62 and 63 blocks (Eni’s interest 20%) concerned:
- production optimization programs with workover and drilling activities
- increasing generation capacity of the combined cycle power plant at Okpai. Natural gas production of the area will support the plant capacity. The first phase of the expansion project was completed, reaching an installed capacity of 780 MW.
Other development activities concerned:
- the drilling of 8 oil wells in the EA offshore field in the Block 79 (Eni’s interest 5%)
- production optimization programs with workover activity in the Gbaran field in the OML 28 block (Eni’s interest 5%) and Forkados Yokri field in the OML 43 block (Eni’s interest 5%)
- the drilling of 4 oil wells in the western area of the Block 46 (Eni’s interest 5%)
- the completion of an additional development well of the offshore Bonga field (Eni’s interest 12.5%).
