…Zabazaba FID coming later in the year
OpeOluwani Akintayo
31 October 2018, Sweetcrude, Lagos — Minister of States for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has revealed that the Federal Government has no plans to issue new licenses for oil acreages before next year’s general elections in February.
He revealed this during an interview with Bloomberg in London on Monday.
The clarification comes on the heels of speculations that the Buhari administration could hurriedly sign out some drilling licenses ahead of the elections.
On Eni-led Zabazaba project, Kachikwu said some dots were still being connected for signing of the Final Investment Decision, FID, before the year runs out.
“The nation doesn’t plan to issue any new offshore licenses before elections due in February. We are shooting for later this year” on a final investment decision at the Zabazaba development, as some contractual details are being fine-tuned”, he said.
After Total’s Egina, Shell’s $10 billion expansion of its Bonga field and Eni’s Zabazaba-Etan project are currently at the advanced stage. However, both companies have kept mum on the exact time the FID on the two projects would be signed. Even with their FIDs signed this year as said by the minister, production from the fields is still years away.
The $4billion Egina floating production, storage and offloading vessel will commence production in December with 180,000 barrels daily output, which rise to 200,000 barrel per day by first quarter next year.
At 330 meters (1,080 feet) long, Egina is the largest FPSO ever built by Total.
