Page 10 - AfrOil Week 13 2022

AfrOil PERFORMANCE AfrOil

“Existential threat” crime than to low-scale amateur operations.
Speaking for IPPG, Chikezie Nwosu, the “The language is very important, and I think
managing director of Waltersmith Petroman, we use ‘theft’ rather quickly. I don’t think this
described the problem of oil theft as perva- is theft; this is organised criminal activity,” he
sive and extensive enough to be an “existential remarked, according to This Day. “The level
threat” to independent producers. of sophistication in terms of tapping into the
Thefts from IPPG’s member companies pipelines, the distributions, efforts required to
peaked at 91% of total volumes loaded in move hundreds of thousands of barrels a day
December 2021, compared with about 4% in isn’t some guy coming along and tapping into a
years past, he reported. pipeline and taking [a] container [of] crude oil.
“The TNP [Trans Niger Pipeline] is the major It is organised criminality.”
issue,” he claimed, according to This Day. “We Laing added: “As an industry, I know how
have seen crude theft grow from single-digit hard my colleagues work to produce products
percentages to reports of 91% in December for that we need, and to suffer the level of theft that
some of the operators who produce into the we have is disheartening. But more importantly,
TNP, 75% in January, and the February report it is a threat to investments – a threat to the
we got has an average of 82%.” health of the industry and wealth of the nation. It
is important that the stakeholders integrate their
“Organised criminality” activities and their thoughts. As OPTS, we have
Speaking for OPTS, Richard Laing, the manag- met with a number of stakeholders over the last
ing director of ExxonMobil Nigeria, said that oil several months, and we want to make sure that
theft was, in many cases, more akin to organised whatever we do is joined up and effective.” ™

Eni raises reserve estimate for

Ndungu field offshore Angola

ANGOLA ENI (Italy) has revised its reserve estimate for
Ndungu, a field within Block 15/06 offshore
Angola, upwards to 800mn-1bn barrels of oil
equivalent (boe) following the successful com-
pletion of an appraisal well.
The company said in a statement published
on March 28 that preliminary data from the
Ndungu-2 well indicated that the field was much
larger than the initial estimate of 250-300mn
boe. Instead, it described Ndungu – along with
Agogo, another field within the same licence
area – as one of its two largest discoveries within
Block 15/06.
The Italian major also reported that the well
had encountered 40 metres of net oil pay within
the Lower Oligocene layer. Additionally, it said
that the reservoir had good petrophysical prop-
erties and had been confirmed to be an exten-
sion of the reservoir found in the Ndungu-1
exploration well.
“An intensive data acquisition was performed Ndungu will be connected to the western production hub at Block 15/06 (Image: Eni)
to assess the full potential of the discovery,” it
stated. (FPSO) unit, which is also connected to the Cin-
Eni and its partners in the Block 15/06 pro- guvu, Mpungi, Nzanza, Ochigufu, Sangos and
ject began early production at the Ndungu field Vandumbu fields in the western section of Block
in February 2022 within the framework of their 15/06 via subsea tie-backs.
Infrastructure-Led Exploration (ILX) pro- The vessel is capable of handling 100,000 bar-
gramme. They have already brought one devel- rels per day (bpd) of oil and has been operating
opment well on stream and aim to launch the since 2014.
second in the fourth quarter of this year. “In parallel, appraisal whilst producing will
These wells will be supported by the Ngoma continue [in order] to optimise returns and min-
floating production, storage and off-loading imise risks,” the Italian company noted.

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 13 30•March•2022