Africa accounts for around one-third of Total’s oil and gas production, and in 2015 attracted around half the company’s capital investments. It was also one of three priorities highlighted by Chairman and CEO Patrick Pouyanné last year, the others being LNG and deep offshore.
While other majors have scaled back their commitments in the continent, Total has forged ahead with three giant deep offshore projects off Nigeria, Republic of Congo, and Angola.
With Egina offshore Nigeria is projected to go onstream in 2018, next will be Moho Phase 1b project in Republic of Congo, which started up last December, which will be followed by Moho Nord in 2017. Kaombo’s two FPSOs in block 32 offshore Angola will start up in 2017 and 2018.
All three projects were sanctioned before the fall in the oil price, but there has never been any question of suspending activity, according to Abiodun Afolabi, Total’s Exploration & Production Secretary General for Africa.
“Patrick Pouyanné has stated that the group will maintain its commitments while ensuring that all three projects are profitable,” Afolabi pointed out. “To an extent, our continued investment has helped all three nations going through a difficult period. Kaombo, for instance, is providing upward of 4,000 jobs in Angola during a time of economic hardship triggered by the oil price.”
Afolabi’s mandate includes sub-Saharan countries. Total’s production in this region currently comes from Nigeria, Angola, Congo and Gabon, while its discoveries onshore Uganda are under study. The company has exploration interests in seven other countries, including offshore Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa, and Mozambique.
Aside from Egypt, Nigeria has Africa’s widest-ranging capabilities for offshore engineering and construction. Local input into the Egina project, 130 km (81 m) offshore, is probably the highest for any deep-water Nigerian project to date.
Total discovered the field in 1,750 m (5,741 ft) of water in the OML 130 block in 2003, and initially considered a tieback to the Akpo field FPSO. However, strong results from further drilling in the area persuaded the company to purse a stand-alone development, which Total and partners CNOOC, Sapetro, and Petrobras finally sanctioned in mid-2013.
Samsung Heavy Industries in South Korea is building the 330-m (1,082-ft) long, 61-m (200-ft) wide and 33.5-m (110-m) deep FPSO, which will be the largest in Total’s fleet, with a total weight of 34,000 metric tons (37,478 tons). This will have capacity to produce 200,000 b/d of crude at plateau, initially solely from Egina, later possibly supplemented by production from the nearby Preowei field.
Six of the topsides modules are under construction at the SHI-MCI yard at the deep-water LADOL complex in Lagos, namely:
· P1: Chemical injection package, foam and tote tanks area
· P4: Production manifold and pigging (Egina South and future hub)
· S1: Seawater booster pumps and MINOX water treatment package
· S2: Water injection, fine filtration and variable-speed drives/transformer
· P8: Oil export and oil metering/prover loop
· S8: Pancake for future development.
All will be installed on the FPSO following its anticipated arrival at the yard during 3Q 2017. This will also be the first such installation on a deepwater FPSO in Nigeria.
Saipem was awarded the EPCI contract for the subsea flowlines, risers and umbilicals, and the contractor is also responsible for mooring of the FPSO and the oil loading terminal buoy at the
Egina location. The Saipem Rumoulumeni yard and Aveon Offshore in Port Harcourt are handling much of the fabrication (Technip is supplying the steel tube umbilicals). FMC Technologies has the $1.2-billion EPCC contract for the subsea production systems.
Jeremy Beckman
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