It was celebration time on Wednesday as Nigeria’s oil production capacity received a significant boost with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited’s announcement of the successful commencement of oil production from the Akpo West offshore Field.
NNPC Ltd in a statement by its Chief Corporate Communications Officer, Olufemi Soneye, described the achievement of the milestones as the result of meticulous planning, strategic collaboration, and unwavering dedication from all stakeholders involved in the project.
Soneye said adding about 14,000 barrels per day of condensate to the nation’s daily oil production was in line with the drive to optimize production from the nation’s oil and gas assets.
He said the commencement of production from the offshore oil field would be followed up by the production of about 4million cubic meters of gas per day by 2028.
“The development of Akpo West located on Petroleum Mining Lease (PML) 2 (formerly OML 130) leverages the existing Akpo Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) facility via a subsea tie-back to keep costs low and minimize greenhouse gas emissions,” Soneye said.
The milestone was enabled by the strategic leadership of the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), Mele Kyari, and the Upstream Directorate of the NNPC Ltd whose support played no small role in propelling the operators to actualise the short- and mid-term hydrocarbon production goal of the President Tinubu administration,” he added.
Located 135 kilometres offshore, Akpo West is one of the discoveries on PML 2 with proximity to the Akpo main, which started up in 2009 and produced 124,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2023.
PML 2 is operated by TotalEnergies with a 24% interest, in partnership with CNOOC (45%), Sapetro (15%), Prime 130 (16%), with the NNPC Ltd as the concessionaire of the Production Sharing Contract (PSC).
