Page 12 - AfrOil Week 34 2022

AfrOil POLICY AfrOil

She went on to say that she saw the meeting as
necessary to the country’s fiscal and political
stability, owing to the high cost of subsidies on
gasoline, known local as premium motor spirit
(PMS).
“There is a need to have this as a national
discussion,” Premium Times quotes Ahmed
as saying. “If we all as a nation agree that this
PMS subsidy should go, then we all agree that
it should go. It is not the president alone that is
deciding. It is not the Ministry of Finance that is
suggesting. I hope this is done very soon, that we
take that decision.”
Nigeria’s federal government spent no less
than NGN6.3 trillion ($14.97bn) on gasoline Nigeria will spend nearly $16bn on gasoline subsidies in 2022 (Image: NNPC Retail)
subsidies between 2013 and 2021, the finance
minister added, and has budgeted another own position as the largest crude oil producer
NGN3.35 trillion ($7.96bn) for the first half in sub-Saharan Africa. However, the extent of
of 2023. (According to previous reports, this this drag grew significantly in recent months, as
year’s bill is expected to reach NGN 6.72 trillion, rising oil prices pulled fuel prices to new heights.
equivalent to $15.97bn.) Nigeria’s government has been urged repeat-
Currently, Ahmed continued, Abuja is edly by international financial institutions (IFIs)
spending about NGN18.6bn ($44.19mn) per such as the World Bank to eliminate the subsidy
day to keep domestic gasoline prices artifi- regime, and it was supposed to do so in February
cially low. This amounts to a subsidy of around 2022 in line with the provisions of the Petroleum
NGN283.2 ($0.67) per litre, she stated, calling Industry Act (PIA) adopted in August 2021.
this level of spending unsustainable. Early this year, though, Abuja opted to extend
The gasoline subsidy has been a drag on the the subsidy for another 18 months, apparently
Nigerian government’s finance for years, not out of concern that this politically unpopular
least because the country remains dependent move might trigger social unrest and labour
on imported petroleum products despite its stoppages. ™

PROJECTS & COMPANIES
BW Energy sends offshore production

facility to Dussafu block offshore Gabon

GABON Norway’s BW Energy, a subsidiary of BW
Offshore, reported on August 23 that it had
dispatched its BW MaBoMo offshore produc-
tion facility to the Dussafu licence area offshore
Gabon.
In a statement, BW Energy said that the pro-
duction facility had been loaded onto a heavy-
lift vessel for transport to Gabonese waters. The
unit is set to arrive at Dussafu in late Septem-
ber, and BW Energy will begin installation and
hook-up operations soon afterward with the
goal of starting production in the late part of the
first quarter of 2023.
The production facility will be used to extract
oil from Hibiscus and Ruche, two of the six
fields within the Dussafu licence area. It is slated There are six discovered oilfields within the Dussafu block (Image: BW Energy)
to drill six horizontal wells that will add up to
30,000 barrels per day (bpd) to the block’s gross BW Energy built the BW MaBoMo by con-
production total, and it will be connected to verting an older jack-up drilling rig, the Hibis-
the BW Adolo floating production, storage and cus Alpha, into an offshore production facility
off-loading (FPSO) vessel via a 20-km pipeline. with 12 well slots.

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