Page 8 - AfrOil Week 47 2019

AfrOil POLICY AfrOil
 “[We] are aware that challenges remain in the areas of infrastructure; legal and regulatory framework; [and] commercial framework (pricing policy) via the National Domestic Gas Supply and Pricing Regulations of 2008 vis-à- vis the new National Gas Policy approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in 2017,” he commented.
Sangster also predicted that Nigeria would face challenges with respect to funding initia- tives in the gas sector. “[As] we all know, invest- ments in PSC [production-sharing contract] oil projects are recovered from oil,” he said. “[But] no mechanism is currently agreed for cost recovery or profit-sharing for investments in gas projects.”
He acknowledged that Total was one of the biggest investors in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector. “Total’s upstream branch plays a significant economic and social role in Nigeria, operating nearly 15% of the country’s production,” he said. “Nigeria, as one of our core areas of activi- ties, is also crucial to the Total Group, account- ing for 12% of its equity production. In the last five years, Total has invested approximately
$10bn in the country.”
Even so, he said, the company also wants
to establish itself as a “responsible” partner in Nigeria. ”This is the meaning of our motto: ‘Committed to Better Energy.’ This ambition challenges us to provide more reliable, afforda- ble and clean energy to the world’s growing population,” he commented. ™
PROJECTS & COMPANIES
AGOCO restarts 40-year-old oil well
Abuja hopes to reduce flaring (Photo: Nigeria Department of Petroleum Resources)
LIBYA
A wholly owned subsidiary of Libya’s state- owned National Oil Corp. (NOC) has restarted production at a 40-year-old well drilled at the Messla field.
NOC said earlier this week that Arabian Gulf Oil Co. (AGOCO) had reconnected the H54-65 well, which was drilled in 1979 and then abandoned because of its unfavourable permeability and porosity, on November 23. The well is now yielding 2,900 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil, it noted.
The company further stated that AGOCO had used a guided drilling technique known as Geosphere 474 to re-enter and re-route the well. The NOC subsidiary used this technique to begin re-entering H54-65 from inside the packaging tubes in October 2018, it explained.
AGOCO was the first company in Africa to employ this technique, it added.
Earlier this month, the NOC subsidiary said it had succeeded in pushing production rates up by a smaller amount at the Sarir oilfield. Following the completion of a maintenance programme, it reported, the C-158 well drilled at Sarir began yielding 772 bpd. This marked a 93% rise on the previously reported figure of 400 bpd, it said.
According to NOC, AGOCO covered the cost of work at both fields with budget funds allotted by the internationally recognised Gov- ernment of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli.
Mustafa Sanalla, the head of NOC, con- firmed last week that the company had received 1.5bn dinars ($1.066bn) from the GNA in
October to finance its upstream development programme. These funds will help raise the company’s crude oil output to 1.5mn bpd by the end of 2020, up from the current level of 1.25mn bpd, he told members of a delegation from the Libyan-British Business Council (LBBC).
By 2024, Sanalla said, NOC hopes to see oil production rise further to 2.1mn bpd. Natural gas yields will also climb to 3.4bn cubic feet (96.28mn cubic metres) per day during the same interval, he said.
As NOC strives to increase output, he added, 2020 is likely to be a “year of transformation.” The company intends to introduce new pro- duction technologies, fix pipelines, drill new wells, re-open or upgrade existing shafts and begin repairing damaged oilfields next year, he explained. ™
AGOCO is a fully owned subsidiary of NOC (Photo: AGOCO)
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Week 47 27•November•2019