As $3.3bn Egina FPSO arrives offshore oilfield this week
The $3.3bn Egina FPSO arrived at the SHI-MCI FZE quayside in LADOL free zone in Lagos in January this year where it was integrated locally by Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria (SHIN) Limited. After the successful completion of the integration works, the FPSO sailed away in the early hours of Sunday, August 26, 2018 and will arrive at the oilfield located in Oil Mining Lease (OML) 130 later this week to commence production of 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day before end of this year writes FRANK UZUEGBUNAM from Lagos.
The $3.3 billion Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO) unit that sailed away in the early hours of Sunday, August 26, 2018 from Lagos to the 200,000 barrels per day Egina oilfield will arrive at the offshore field this week, Businessday investigation has revealed.
The Egina FPSO was built by Samsung Heavy Industries of Korea (SHI) for Egina oilfield being developed at a cost of $16 billion by the global oil giant, Total.
With the successful completion of the fabrication and integration works in Lagos, the FPSO will arrive at the Egina oilfield located in Oil Mining Lease (OML) 130.
The FPSO sailed away from the quayside at Samsung Yard in Geoje, South Korea on October 31, 2017 and arrived at the SHI-MCI FZE quayside in LADOL free zone in Lagos in January, where it was integrated locally by Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria (SHIN) Limited.
The fabrication and integration of the Egina FPSO in Nigeria was the first time such complex tasks were executed in Africa as there is no other FPSO integration yard elsewhere in the continent.
These tasks were executed at the SHI-MCI FZE, a fabrication and integration yard, which is the only one of such facility that was built by SHI as part of the efforts to make Nigeria the hub of FPSO integration in Africa.
An official of SHI, who did not want to be quoted said that on arrival at the Egina field, “mooring, hook-up and offshore commissioning will proceed favourably offshore with the final completion expected before the end of the year”
“The project cost management is proceeding as scheduled with thorough preparation. The only major balance work now is the remaining commissioning work in offshore and to make the FPSO ready for entry of hydrocarbons (oil and gas) within 2018,” he explained.
The Egina field will add 200,000 barrels per day of crude oil to Nigeria’s daily output when it comes on stream. This will amount to an increase of 10 per cent to Nigeria’s daily production at peak.
In line with the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Development (NOGICD) Act of 2010, SHIN has successfully completed the Egina FPSO work in SHI-MCI yard under the stringent local content regulations with similar safety and quality standards applicable in the Geoje shipyard in Korea.
“This volume of onshore work was never before accomplished in Nigeria. Therefore, the major risky portion of Egina project has now been completed. This achievement has been followed by very good response from the authorities of the Nigerian government and international clients. This would lead SHI to gain a competitive edge in future offshore project orders to be placed in West Africa, of course including Nigeria. In terms of history, SHI won the order to build Egina FPSO in 2013,” the SHI official added.
The FPSO is 330 metres in length, 61 metres in breadth, and 34 metres in height, with capacity to produce 200,000 barrels of crude oil per day and storage capacity of 2.3 million barrels and topsides weighing 60,000 tonnes.
The FPSO will be installed in Egina offshore field, located 200 kilometres from Nigerian shores.
SHI executed the entire engineering, design, procurement, construction, transportation, and commissioning.
The integration and fabrication yard, which was completed in October 2016, is 120,000 square meters and has world-class construction and painting facilities as well as a robust quay wall of 500 meters, which has the unique strength in West Africa for berthing of mega size FPSOs.
“We are very proud to announce the successful completion of the first ever Nigerian onshore integration works for Egina FPSO with thorough preparation in compliance with Nigerian local content, both schedule and cost management have been proceeding as planned,” the SHI official said.
Egina FPSO is not the first FPSO to be deployed in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. Nigeria has five producing deepwater fields- Bonga, Agbami, Erha, Akpo, Usan, with world-class FPSOs. But Egina is first on many fronts.
Egina FPSO is unique in the sense that it is the largest FPSO in the country, and is also the first FPSO to be integrated locally in Nigeria, and indeed, Africa. Before the fabrication and integration yard was built by SHI, the existing fabrication yards in Nigeria, could only fabricate simple structures and platforms, and had no capacity to fabricate complex FPSO modules.
When the idea of building the SHI-MCI yard in Nigeria was mulled, many industry stakeholders who are familiar with the risks in Nigeria’s operating environment thought it would not happen. But SHI surmounted the risks and completed the fabrication workshop in June 2015, and the integration Quay wall in October 2016.
The yard, which can handle 10,000 metric tonnes fabrication yearly, was used to fabricate some of the modules of the Egina FPSO. The state-of-the art fabrication and integration facility was constructed and developed under the technical, managerial and operational expertise of SHI while LADOL, its local partner and logistic service company, provided the ferry and electricity service.
However, an official of SHI attributed the success of the Egina project to the supportive roles of other stakeholders, including SHI’s co-venturers and government agencies. He listed some of the stakeholders to include the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC); National Petroleum Management Services (NAPIMS); Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA); Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB); Nigerian Export Processing Zone Authority (NEPZA); and Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) and Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS).