Uchenna Izundu
OGJ International Editor
LONDON, Mar. 9 -- Total Upstream Nigeria Ltd. (Tupni) has brought on stream deepwater Akpo gas condensate field in Nigeria a month ahead of schedule. It expects to reach plateau levels this summer.
Akpo's production will be ramped up to 175,000 b/d of condensate and 320 MMscfd of gas from 44 wells (22 producers, 20 water injectors, and 2 gas injectors), 22 of which have already been drilled. Output is being delivered through a 100,000-tonne dry weight floating production, storage, and offloading vessel. The FPSO has a capacity of 185,000 b/d and can store up to 2 million bbl of stabilized liquid hydrocarbons.
The gas, which will go to the Amenam hub, will be used in the domestic market and at the Nigeria LNG plant on Bonny Island. Gas and condensate is delivered to a single-point mooring oil terminal 2 km away. The subsea infrastructures transporting the hydrocarbon effluents consist of 110 km of high-pressure, high-temperature subsea flowlines connected by steel catenary risers to the FPSO.
Akpo is a strategically important field underpinning Total's growth strategy as it would harness gas that would otherwise be flared. It "has been designed as a hybrid development capable of handling up to 530 MMscfd of high-pressure gas, out of which 185 MMscfd will be re-injected into the reservoir to maximize hydrocarbon recovery, and 320 MMscfd will be exported by pipeline," said Total.
Akpo, on OML 130, has estimated proved and probable reserves of 620 millions bbl of condensate and more than 1 tcf of gas. Condensate is 50°.
Tupni holds a 24% interest. Its partners are Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., Sapetro (South Atlantic Petroleum) of Nigeria, CNOOC Ltd., and Petrobras of Brazil. The field, discovered in 2000, is 200 km off Nigeria in 1,200-1,400 m of water.
Contact Uchenna Izundu at [email protected].
