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Adewale Sanyaolu, Houston, Texas
Nigeria’s deepwater operation generated revenue exceeding $180 billion, Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr. Maikanti Baru, has said.
This was even as he announced the approval of new deepwater projects with about 10 at different developmental stages.
The NNPC GMD stated this in his presentation at the ongoing Offshore Technology Conference (OTC), which entered its second day in Houston, Texas, USA yesterday.
Baru explained that from a discovered reserves perspective, deepwater Nigeria holds approximately 13 billion barrels of oil, out of which about two billion have been produced, adding that there is a huge volume yet untapped with opportunity abounds.
Beside the revenue generated from deepwater operations, he said the industry has committed capital in excess of $65 billion, thereby creating value for all stakeholders, stressing that there are more barrels of oil to be recovered, which translate to more opportunities waiting.
The GMD who was represented by NNPC Chief Operating Officer (COO), Upstream, Mr. Bello Rabiu, said Nigeria remains an active player relative to other regions in terms of deepwater development.
‘‘The industry started with the deployment of latest technology, a stride it has continued to maintain. Out of 15 FPSOs in Nigeria, seven have been deployed for deepwater operations’’ He said.
According to him, Nigeria ranks only behind Angola within the African deepwater operations in terms of FPSO deployment, adding that he expects an uptrend in activities within Nigeria’s deepwater and continued deployment of leading technology.
Baru said in terms of capacity and local content development, the country has utilised each deepwater project as an avenue to upscale human capital, acquiring unique skills in different areas not limited to engineering design, project management, welding and diving.
He equally added that the local content contribution or share of services in deepwater has continued to grow, improving from the sub one per cent level to an aggregate contribution of over 25 per cent and from engineering man-hours of less than 20,000 to over 1.1 million in recent Egina project, adding that with the Nigerian content, tonnage has grown by 600 per cent from the first deepwater till date.
According to Baru, deepwater projects benefitted the wider Nigerian economy by boosting demand for a range of goods and services including manpower supply, offshore vessels and platforms, materials, floaters, helicopters and creating jobs and providing a range of training and maintenance services to the industry locally.
