NCDMB,NAOC to speed up action on Zabazaba, Etan deep water projects
The tempo of development activities at Zabazaba and Etan deep water projects are set to increase as Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) and Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) have pledged to work together to ensure compliance with the provisions of the Nigerian Content Act
Zabazaba and Etan are located on OPL 245 which is located on the southern edge of the Niger Delta, in water depths ranging from 1,700 to 2,000 metres. The block holds significant discovered hydrocarbon reserves and is thought to be very prospective.
Two oil and gas discoveries have been made on the block. Etan and Zabazaba were discovered in 2005 and 2006 respectively. Eni plans to develop the Etan and Zabazaba fields in phases with subsea wells tied-back to a leased floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel.
The two organisations reached the agreement recently at a review meeting on the project held in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State where the chief executive of the two organisations Simbi Wabote and Massimo Insulla, Managing Director of NAOC, were in attendance.
Simbi Wabote, Executive Secretary of NCMDB at the meeting assured that the Board will support the speedy execution of the Zabazaba and Etan projects through timely review of contract tenders and execution of necessary approvals in view of the urgent need to increase the country’s crude oil production capacity and shore up revenue for the national economy.
Wabote however stressed that the project would utilise capacities and facilities that were developed on past projects and charged the promoters to exceed the Nigerian Content performance achieved on the Egina deep water project, including the partial integration and fabrication of the Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) platform.
Massimo Insulla, Managing Director of NAOC on his part pledged the company’s commitment to develop the project in compliance with the Nigerian Content Act to create jobs for Nigerians and retain spend in the economy.
Insulla underscored the support and cooperation of NCDMB since the conception of the project, noting that a speedy development would benefit all stakeholders.
According to him, the promoters of the deep water project were keen to take the Final Investment Decision (FID) and determined to make it profitable despite the sustained low price of crude oil.
He confirmed that the project would generate $8bn for the Federal Government adding that the company had been engaging local and international contractors in the past four months.
Barry Nwibanire, General Manager, Nigerian Content, NAOC urged that the company organised six workshops in August and September for local and international contractors for the purposes of informing them on the Nigerian Content opportunities on different packages of the project.
He stated that the workshops afforded contractors the opportunity to showcase their capacities and form alliances to enable them deliver on the project in compliance with the Nigerian Content Act.
According to Nwibanire, feedback from the workshops have confirmed that there were scopes of the project where local capacity exceeded the percentages prescribed in the Nigerian Content Act while there were also scopes where existing local capacity was short of the targets set in the Act. He canvassed that the areas of significant capacity limitations would require the Board’s review to enable it decide the Capacity Development Initiatives to be developed in place of the waivers.
In his contribution, Paul Zuhumben, General Manager, Projects and Operations Division, NCDMB charged NAOC to ensure that the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contractors signs Memorandum of Agreements (MOA) with local contractors to firm up the execution of work in-country.
NAOC is developing the Zabazaba and Etan deep water integrated project in partnership with Shell Nigeria Exploration Company (SNEPCO) on Oil Prospecting License (OPL) 245.
Olusola Bello