14 January 2014, Lagos – West Africa-focused Eland Oil & Gas said it has made tremendous progress with its activities on the Oil Mining Lease 40 (OML40) license, onshore Nigeria, and it expects to see production commence shortly.
Eland last week announced the completion of rehabilitation work on the Opuama flowstation and that it has entered the project’s pre-commissioning and testing phase. This, according to the company will include the testing of the final section of the 12-inch export line, with the commencement of production to follow shortly.
Eland said it was looking forward to the start of a drilling campaign to develop the Opuama field.
Eland was established with the intent to acquire and develop upstream assets in West Africa and with a principal focus on Nigeria. On August 31, 2012, Elcrest Exploration and Production Nigeria, a Joint Venture (JV) Company in which Eland presently holds a 45 per cent interest, acquired a 45 per cent equity stake in OML 40, situated in the Niger delta for $154 million.
The Nigerian Petroleum Development Company’s (NPDC’s), upstream arm of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) holds the remaining 55 per cent equity interest and is operator. Eland, its JV partner, and the NPDC, are proceeding with the development of this license.
OML 40 is an asset with existing production facilities and significant low risk exploration potential. Since acquisition of the asset in September 2012 the company’s focus had been on restoring production from the wells that were shut-in, in March 2006. The work required to restore production from the two existing wells involved the laying of 3 km of replacement 4-inch flowlines, a 30 metre sectional repair of the export pipeline and recertification of the existing production flowstation facilities.
– Chika Amanze-Nwachuku, This Day
