Page 16 - AfrOil Week 30

AfrOil POLICY AfrOil

Nigeria already has two urea plants in operation hopes to help develop its agricultural sector and
– the 1.4mn tpy Indorama unit at Port Harcourt feed its growing population.
and the 500,000 tpy Notore facility at the port The sector has stagnated in recent decades,
of Onne. A second 1.6mn tpy train is slated overshadowed by the country’s oil industry.
to start production at the Indorama facility in Nigeria is also on a drive to utilise more of its gas
December. reserves, having declared 2020 to be the “Year
By expanding its urea production, Nigeria of Gas.” ™

Malaysian company, ENH

suspend drilling in Buzi district

MOZAMBIQUE THE national oil company (NOC) of Mozam-
bique, ENH, and its partner Buzi Hydrocarbons
PTE, a subsidiary of Malaysia’s Energi Mega
Persada, have suspended exploration drilling in
the Buzi district of Sofala Province, citing prob-
lems related to the coronavirus (COVID-19)
pandemic.
In a notice to Mozambique’s national oil and
gas regulator, the National Petroleum Institute
(INP), the partners said they had taken this step
in light of public health measures designed to
curb the spread of the outbreak. Restrictions on
movement and transportation have complicated
efforts to send personnel, goods and equipment
to work sites, they explained.
INP confirmed this, saying in a statement
posted on its website: “This [exploration pro-
gramme] is a complex activity, undertaken by
a considerable number of workers, including
expatriates. Since it is obligatory to comply with
the procedures laid down by the government
concerning people and goods entering and leav- The Buzi block is in Mozambique’s Sofala province (Image: EMP)
ing Mozambican territory, the companies could
not proceed with the due rotation of staff.” wells will be completed and duly tested to ver-
The suspension will affect drilling opera- ify the flow and amount of natural gas,” the INP
tions at the BS-1 and BS-2 wells, the agency said. said.
ENH and Buzi Hydrocarbons PTE have already ENH and Buzi Hydrocarbons PTE teamed
drilled BS-1 to a depth of 1,567 metres and did up to sign a concession deal in 2010. Under that
encounter shows of natural gas during drilling, agreement, they are due to carry out exploration
but they have not yet tested the well to deter- and development work in three stages. The first
mine whether it contains commercially viable stage was devoted to analysing existing seismic
reserves. They will now wait to take that step. data, some of it dating back to earlier exploration
The other well, BS-2, is at an earlier stage. campaigns in the 1960s. It involved re-process-
It has only been sunk to a depth of 836 metres, ing 300 km of previously gathered 2D seismic
equivalent to 54% of the target depth of 1,548 data and re-interpreting another 1,650 km of 2D
metres. As a result, the partners have now sus- data, as well as collecting another 600 km of new
pended drilling and are confining themselves to 2D data.
maintaining the platform. The second and third stages of the project are
“It is expected that, as soon as the state of meant to encompass the drilling of two explora-
emergency is lifted, and the conditions for tion wells. The cost of sinking each well is antic-
movement are normalised, the BS1 and BS2 ipated to reach $15.2mn. ™

P16 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 30 29•July•2020