Page 9 - AfrOil Week 47 2019

AfrOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES AfrOil
Springfield Energy completes drilling programme offshore Ghana
GHANA
SPRINGFIELD Energy, an independent Ghanaian company, has reported that it has wrapped up its drilling programme at West Cape Three Points Block 2 (WCTP Block 2), its licence area offshore Ghana.
In a statement, Springfield Energy con- firmed that it had discovered sizeable hydro- carbon reserves in Afina-1x, one of two wells drilled at WCTP Block 2. It did not disclose the size of the find, however. Company managers willmaketheresultspublic“induecourse,”the statement said.
Kevin Okyere, the CEO of Springfield Ener- gy’s parent organisation, described the drilling programme as an important achievement. “What we have achieved over the past two months is an excellent feat by all standards,” he remarked. “Considering the fact that this is our maiden and historic drilling in deepwater, we couldn’t have asked for a better outcome. The team effort by all our stakeholders, suppliers, contractors and sub-contractors has given us these results, and we greatly appreciate it.”
Springfield Energy also said in its statement that its offshore crews had adhered closely to health, safety and environment (HSE) criteria.
In the course of the 64-day drilling campaign, employees amassed a total of 119,520 man- hours, with 155 people working for 12 hours each day on average, it said. During that period, they sustained no lost-time injuries (LTIs) at all, it revealed.
Springfield Energy holds an 84% stake in WCTP Block 2. The remaining equity in the licence area is split between state-owned Ghana National Petroleum Co. (GNPC) and its explo- rationarm,GNPCExplorationandProduction Co. (Explorco).
The partners have been using the Stena Forth, a drillship owned by Stena Drilling, at WCTP Block 2. They spudded Afina-1x, the first of the two, in October at a site located in 1,030-metre-deep water and drilled it to a total depth of 4,082 metres. They encountered 65 metres of oil, including 50 metres of light crude pay, in Cenomanian strata.
This well was the first deepwater well sunk by an independent company offshore Ghana. If the find at WCTP Block 2 is confirmed, it will represent the biggest find ever made in the country. Ghana’s largest confirmed field is Jubi- lee, which also lies in the offshore zone.™
DNG prepares to launch LNG bunkering
SOUTH AFRICA
SOUTH African infrastructure company DNG Energy said last week that it will start LNG bun- kering operations in Algoa Bay in the second quarter of 2020. The move comes as the Interna- tional Maritime Organisation (IMO) prepares to bring new rules to reduce sulphur emissions from marine fuel from January 1, 2020. The introduction of the rules is expected to lead to a rise in the use of LNG as a marine fuel.
Algoa Bay is South Africa’s largest bunker- ing port, located on one of the world’s busiest trading routes. The company noted last week that 56,000 vessels per year transit the region, and that its plan will improve access to LNG bunkers for commercial vessels on this route.
DNG’s plans for Algoa Bay include a 160,000 cubic metre floating LNG (FLNG) storage facility and an 8,000-tonne LNG bunker barge, construction of which was commissioned in South African Shipyards in 2018. The vessel is the largest by weight to be built on the African continent to date.
DNG is planning to harness Africa’s abun- dant natural gas reserves to use as feedstock for
its bunkering operations.
“The shipping industry faces significant
challenges in meeting global sulphur regula- tions from 2020, as well as ambitious decarbon- isation and wider sustainability targets towards 2050,” DNG’s founder and CEO, Aldworth Mbalati, said. “It is increasingly evident that LNG as a marine fuel has an important role to play on this pathway. As a major global mari- time hub, the development of LNG bunkering infrastructure in Algoa Bay is therefore a natu- ral step in expanding Africa’s LNG value chain, directly supporting the growth of LNG-fuelled shipping on multiple trade routes and deliv- ering against the industry’s, as well as Africa’s, sustainability goals.”
DNG is investing over $5bn by 2020 in infra- structure programmes across South Africa, Nigeria and Mozambique as part of its wider LNG development strategy. ™
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