Page 8 - AfrOil Week 32

AfrOil PERfoRmanCE AfrOil
and two exploration wells, HW-2X and NWG 38 D-1, in Egypt.
South Ghazalat is anticipated to reach 1,000 bpd before the end of the year, TransGlobe said. e company has rented an early production facility and is equipping the SGZ-6X well for
production. It is seeking permits for an appraisal well in the second half of the year and has begun reprocessing seismic on the lease, ahead of devel- opment drilling. TransGlobe is committed to the drilling of an exploration well, in addition to the appraisal.™
NNPC talks up security links
niGERia
NIGErIaN National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) has talked up security plans, both in the north – where it is working on exploration around the Chad Basin – and in the Niger Delta, in an e ort to secure existing operations. NNPC’s new boss, Mele Kyari, visited the chief of defence, General Gabriel Olonisakin, last week to talk about work in the north.
While the NNPC has expressed an interest in exploration in the north, insecurity has made such work impossible. is was demonstrated by a Boko Haram attack on an NNPC group in July 2017, which led to a number of exploration workers being killed.
Kyari said he had visited the general in order to secure “the support of the armed Forces to help the NNPC in re-entering the Chad Basin, Gongola and Benue Trough to enable us carry out our mandate for national development. Your support in terms of providing full security for sta and equipment is critical to us.”
Discussion of NNPC returning to the north was mentioned in June, under Kyari’s predecessor.
While Nigeria’s armed forces have made progress in their e orts against Boko Haram, the insurgent group has managed to maintain a
degree of operational e ectiveness. One of the problems facing the Nigerian army has been corruption. The country’s national security advisor, Sambo Dasuki, was arrested in 2015, over an alleged loss of $2bn linked to arms procurement.
Kyari also talked to Olanisakin about secur- ing pipelines. e general a rmed support for NNPC’s activities, noting that the military forces had a number of strategies to tackle pipeline breaches.
e following day, Mansur Sambo, the head of NNPC’s subsidiary, Nigerian Petroleum Development Co. (NPDC), said it was essen- tial to work with the security forces in order to generate cash from the energy industry. Sambo had spoken to police and Department of State Services (DSS) o cials.
“Our mandate in NPDC is to increase the company’s oil and gas production volume in order to generate more revenue for the country. is objective will only be achieved in a safe and secured environment,” Sambo was reported as saying on august 7.
In particular, he called for “constant surveil- lance” on NPDC’s assets in the states of Edo, Delta and Bayelsa.™
P8
w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 32 13•August•2019