Page 9 - AfrOil Week 43 2019
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BP has a 62% stake in the project and is also operator. The remaining equity is split between Kosmos, with 28%, and SMHPM, with 10%.
In drilling the Orca-1 well, the partners were targeting a heretofore untested Albian play within the MSGBC (Mauritania-Senegal-Gam- bia-Bissau-Conakry) Basin. They encountered 36 metres of net gas pay in the Albian strata, more than anticipated prior to the spudding of the well. Additionally, they sunk the well to a depth that allowed them to find another 11 metres of net gas pay in the Cenomanian layers. This served to extend the Cenomanian play first
encountered in the Marsouin-1 well, they said. BP, Kosmos and the NOC have also identi- fied a deeper play at Orca, in the Aptian strata.
This play remains untested, though.
Reactions
Andrew Inglis, the CEO of Kosmos, described the gas find as significant.
“Orca-1, which we believe is the largest deep- water hydrocarbon discovery in the world so far this year, further demonstrates the world-scale quality of the Mauritania gas basin,” he was quoted as saying in a company press release.
The new gas find lies within a gas-bearing area that straddles the Senegal-Mauritania border (Image: Kosmos Energy)
Eni brings Obiafu 41 gas field on stream
NIGERIA
A joint venture (JV) led by Italy’s Eni has begun extracting natural gas and condensate from Obiafu 41, a new site in the Niger River Delta.
In a statement, Eni said that the start of production would allow the JV to access the reserves found at Obiafu 41. The JV believes the discovery may hold 28bn cubic metres of gas and 60mn barrels of condensate, it noted.
Historically, producers working in Nigeria often flared off gas so that they could focus their efforts on the recovery of liquid hydrocarbons. Now, though, the JV is directing most of the gas extracted from Obiafu 41 to Nigeria’s domestic market. It is processing the gas at the Ob-Ob plant, a facility run by Eni, and then transport- ing it to the Okpai thermal power plant (TPP), which is also operated by the Italian company. The TPP, which is Nigeria’s first privately owned power station, uses the gas to generate electricity.
Eni did not say how much gas and conden- sate Obiafu 41 was currently producing or how much gas it was supplying to the Okpai facility. It did note, though, that the site would eventu- ally yield 3mn cubic metres per day of gas and 3,000 barrels per day (bpd) of condensate.
The Italian company also pointed out that
the JV had succeeded in launching commer- cial production at the site just three weeks after completing a development well. “This record time-to-market was made possible thanks to Eni’s new integrated model, under which the various disciplines work in parallel from the exploration phase, and all synergies with existing production facilities are properly lev- eraged,” it said.
The Obiafu 41 project will give Eni an opportunity to play a larger role in Nigeria’s energy sector. On the one hand, the company will lead efforts to produce gas for domestic power generation; on the other, it will use even more gas from the new site as it expands the Okpai plant’s capacity from 500 MW to 1,000 MW.
“Once the upgrade is completed,” it said, “Eni will generate 20% of the entire national electricity production, establishing itself as the leading electricity producer in the country.”
Eni is working with Oando, a privately owned Nigerian company, and state-controlled Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) at Obiafu 41. The partners announced the discov- ery of commercially viable reserves at the site in late August of this year.
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