TotalEnergies SE, along with its partners, have recently activated the Akpo West field tie-back project offshore Nigeria, thereby increasing condensate and gas output capacity, as announced by the company.
Akpo West has now been connected to the Akpo floating production storage and offloading facility, which came online in 2009 and serves the main Akpo field. The facility produced 124,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) last year, TotalEnergies said.
Sitting 135 kilometres (83.9 miles) off the coast of the West African country, Akpo West will amp up from an output rate of 14,000 barrels of condensate per day by mid-2024 to up to 4.0 million cubic metres (141.3 million cubic feet) of gas per day by 2028, TotalEnergies said.
“The Akpo West development leverages the existing Akpo facilities to keep costs low and minimise greenhouse gas emissions,” it said in a recent news release, putting Akpo West’s expected emissions at 5.0 kilogrammes of carbon dioxide equivalent per boe.
The Akpo fields are under Petroleum Mining Lease (PML) 2, formerly Oil Mining Lease (OML) 130. TotalEnergies is the operator with a 24 percent stake, while China’s state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. holds a 45 percent interest, Prime Oil & Gas Cooperatief UA has 16 percent, and Nigerian private player South Atlantic Petroleum Ltd. has the remaining 15 percent.
“This project [Akpo West] fits the company’s strategy of developing low-cost and low-emission projects,” Mike Sangster, TotalEnergies senior vice president for exploration and production in Africa, said in a statement. “This project leverages TotalEnergies’ solid footprint in Nigeria and will quickly bring value to the country, TotalEnergies, and its partners.”.
Nigerian National Petroleum Co. Ltd. (NNPC) in a separate press release called the startup a milestone, noting the national oil and gas company has been tasked by President Bola Tinubu to optimise production in the nation’s oil and gas assets. NNPC is the concessionaire for production-sharing contracts in Nigeria.
TotalEnergies said last year it secured a 20-year extension for the PML 2 block, following the settlement of a payment row with partners.
The Niger Delta block is seen by TotalEnergies as a contributor to energy security not only in Nigeria but also in Europe. Nearly 30 percent of PML 2 output in 2022 “was gas sent to the Nigeria LNG plant, notably contributing to Europe’s energy security,” TotalEnergies said in a media statement on May 29 announcing the renewal.
The announcement follows the signing of agreements by TotalEnergies’ upstream unit in Nigeria, NNPC, and their partners to secure the continued development of the block. “The suite [of deals] included Production Sharing Contracts, Heads of Agreement Amendments, Settlement Repayment Agreements, Concession Contracts for 1 PPL [Petroleum Prospecting Licence] and 3 PMLs [Petroleum Mining Leases], and Lease and Licence Instruments,” NNPC announced on Twitter, now X, on May 25, not elaborating on the agreements.
Akpo West is, Sangster noted, TotalEnergies’ second tieback project in Nigeria after the Ikike field, which is under OML 99. TotalEnergies operates OML 99, also in the Niger Delta, with a 40 percent interest rate, while NNPC holds 60 percent.
Announcing the start of production at Ikike on July 25, 2022, TotalEnergies said the field would deliver peak production of 50,000 boepd by the end of that year. The Ikike platform is linked to the Amenam field.
Before Akpo West, another PML 2 field, Egina, had started production in December 2018. It has a peak capacity of 200,000 bpd of oil, according to TotalEnergies.
In a statement released on January 2, 2024, TotalEnergies announced the startup, with then-president for exploration and production Arnaud Breuillac stating that Egina would notably enhance the group’s production and cash flow from 2019 onward. He also highlighted the company’s substantial cost reduction efforts in Nigeria, resulting in a 40 percent decrease in operating costs over the past four years.
