Oil: Shell, NNPC launch $10bn deep-water project in Nigeria

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) have invited bidders to tender for a $10 billion deep-water project in the West African nation.

The prospective bidders are invited to submit their applications packages that comprise engineering, procurement, and construction of the Bonga South West/Aparao (BSWA) project.

The project is being carried out by SNEPCo under a production sharing contract arrangement with the NNPC.

The Minister of State for Petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu, in June last year directed the NNPC and its partners to commence the tendering process for the multi-billion deep-water project, which is expected to add 225,000 barrels of crude oil to Nigeria’s daily production by 2022.

The project includes the construction of a new Floating Production, Storage and Offloading facility.

SNEPCo is the operator of the BSWA project in line with the agreement between the NNPC, Esso Exploration & Production Nigeria (Deepwater) Ltd., Total E&P Nigeria Ltd., Nigerian Agip Exploration Ltd., Texaco Nigeria Outer Shelf Ltd., Star Ultra Deep Petroleum Ltd., Sasol Exploration and Production Nigeria Ltd. and Oil and Gas Nigeria Ltd.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) earlier this year indicated that it would be willing to accept technical assistance from India to repair its refineries in Kaduna, Warri, and Port Harcourt, which have a collective processing capacity of 445,000 barrels per day (bd), but have remained largely unproductive for years.

Despite the efforts of the Federal Government to diversify the economy away from oil to non-oil sector, receipts from oil and gas sector still account for a huge chunk of the country’s total exports’ earnings.

The World Bank sees the West African economy expanding 2.2 percent this year and the International Monetary Fund forecasts growth of 2 percent.