29 September 2014, Lagos – Sinopec-owned Addax Petroleum has finalised arrangements to begin work on its Ofrima-Udele oil wells located in oil mining lease (OML) 137 offshore Nigeria and south of Port Harcourt in Rivers State, it was learnt.
The assets, which have undergone exploratory and appraisal stages, are set for development and if work progresses as scheduled, production is expected to start early 2016.
An industry source told The Nation that the company had submitted the development plan to Nigeria’s oil and gas industry regulator – the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) since March. The regulator and other relevant authorities had given approvals to Addax to go ahead with the projects development, he said.
OML 137 is one of Addax’s notable flagship projects on which it banks the realisation of its aspiration to attain a daily production well in excess of 100,000 barrels per day (bpd). The oil mining lease is 100 per cent owned and operated by Addax.
Barring any circumstance that may change the schedule, the source said work on the development of the wells would begin next month, adding that the oil firm has reached reasonable level of discussion with some financial institutions for funding of the project.
According data from Addax website, OML137 and OML126 are two contiguous blocks located 90 km offshore, south of Port Harcourt, in water depths ranging between 50 metres and 210 metres. Production from OML126 commenced in March 2005 and averaged 42,330 barrels per day. For OML137, however, there has been no production from it but Addax anticipates the presence of light oil for it similar to the crude oil produced from the Okwori and Nda fields in adjacent block OML 126.
OML 137 was surveyed by 3D seismic in early 2006 and contains the Ofrima North oil discovery and several potentially commercial natural gas discoveries(Shokoloko, Toriye, Odum, Asanga and Ofrima), four identified oil prospects (Ofrima North, Atuma, Udele and Asa) and a number of shallow and deep leads.
The company said: “Addax Petroleum operates in Nigeria, Gabon, Cameroon, Middle East and North Sea and employs 274 people of diverse cultures and professional backgrounds in its main service office in Geneva and encourages on-going professional training and development; 80 per cent of Geneva-based employees pursued professional training opportunities in 2013. The Addax Petroleum group, representing more than 30 nationalities worldwide, has over 1100 employees and approximately 1000 additional employees work for our joint venture companies.
– The Nation
