LAGOS State has finally join oil producing States with the announcement by Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum and its partners that oil production had commenced from the Aje oil field located in Oil Mining Lease 113, offshore Lagos.
According to one of the partners, Panoro Energy ASA, the oil fields holds untapped reserves of about 650 billion cubic feet. In a statement released by the company, the subsea installation activities had been underway at Aje since January and were completed in early March, ready for the hook up of the Front Puffin Floating Production Storage Offshore (FPSO), which arrived in Nigeria on March 16.
Speaking on the new development, the Chief Executive Officer of Panoro, John Hamilton said the commencement of oil production is very significant for Nigeria as it is the first commercial production for the country in the emergin Dahomey Basin.
The current Aje partnership, which was formed in August 2013, is made up of Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum (operator), New AGE (African Global Energy), FHN, Energy Equity Resources (EER), Panoro, and Jacka Resources.
The partners to the Aje field had in January 2014 submitted the Field Development Plan (FDP) to the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and this was approved in March 2014, primarily for the development of the Cenomanian oil reservoir.
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Aje oil field is located in the extreme western part offshore Nigeria, adjacent to the Benin border in the Dahomey Basin, in water depths ranging from 100 to 1,500 metres. The field is situated 64 kilometres from Lagos and 12 kilometres close to the West African gas pipeline operated by Chevron.
According to the statement, oil produced from the Aje field will be stored in the Front Puffin which has a production capacity of 40,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) and storage capacity of 750,000 barrels.
“Flow rates will be provided in Panoro’s next operations update, following a period of inauguration and well stabilisation,” the statement added.
Two other wells, Aje-6 and Aje-7 are expected to bring the total oil production up to over 50 million barrels. The field development plan also provides that a third Turonian gas condensate development phase that was conceptualised by the partners would involve three or four wells that would produce over 500 billion cubic feet of gas, 22 million barrels of condensate and 40 million barrels of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).