Sam Ikeotuonye 15 December 2016, Sweetcrude, Lagos – Lekoil, the oil and gas exploration and development company with a focus on Africa, and its partners on Nigeria’s Otakikpo Marginal Field expects to ramp up production to 10,000 barrels of oil per day following recent oil flow from the field.
Lekoil announced last week that oil has flowed from the marginal field to onshore storage tanks, where it will be evacuated upon completion of the offshore pipeline.
The Otakikpo marginal field is in swamp location in OML 11, adjacent to shoreline, in the eastern part of Nigeria.
All onshore facilities have already been fully commissioned and signed off by the regulators, Lekoil said, adding that the offshore pipeline leading from the storage tanks to the tanker offloading manifold is now 80 percent complete.
According to the company, upon completion of the pipeline, the joint venture partners, comprising Green Energy International Ltd as operator and Lekoil as technical partner, would start transporting to the export terminal and subsequently, be able to gradually ramp up production to 10,000 barrels of oil per day.
“We’re delighted to announce this key milestone from the Otakikpo field. I would like to thank the entire team that has worked so hard on this project, our partners Green Energy, investors, debt financiers, our host communities and our government regulators for their continued support,” Lekan Akinyanmi, Lekoil’s CEO, said.
Earlier this year, Lekoil had reported that the Otakikpo-002 well flowed oil from two upper zones during two production tests concluded on April 10, 2016. “The C5 zone flowed at a peak rate of 6,404 bopd (barrels of oil per day) at a 36/64 choke while the C6 zone successfully flowed oil at a peak rate of 5,684 bopd at a 36/64 inch choke, for over 24 hours.
“Production testing at the well was curtailed due to storage capacity limits on well-testing equipment,” the company had said in a statement, where it revealed its expectation to commence commercial production by the end of the second quarter of the year.
