Egina Oilfield Development

Egina oilfield is an ultra-deepwater field located in 1,600m-deep waters in the Gulf of Guinea, approximately 150km off the coast of Nigeria. The offshore oilfield commenced production in December 2018 and is expected to produce 200,000 barrels of oil a day, accounting for 10% of Nigeria’s total oil production.

Total, the operator, holds 24% interest in the Egina offshore field, while the other development partners include Nigeria National Petroleum (NNPC), China National Offshore Oil (CNOOC- 45%), Petrobras (16%), and South Atlantic Petroleum (Sapetro, 15%).

The project received approval from the National Petroleum Investment Management Services (NAPIMS), Nigeria, in 2008.

Construction on the $16bn project was started in December 2013.

Egina oilfield discovery and reservoir details

The Egina oilfield, located in the OML-130 production license, was discovered by the Egina-1 discovery well in December 2003. Other major discoveries in the OML-130 production block include the Apko and Preowei oilfields.

Further appraised by four appraisal wells between 2006 and 2007, the deep-water oilfield is estimated to hold 500 million barrels of oil reserves in Miocene sands.

Egina oilfield infrastructure details

The Egina oilfield development comprises drilling of 44 subsea wells tied-back to a floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit moored at the project site.

The Egina FPSO measures 330m-long, 61m-wide, and 34m-high and has a topside weighing 47,500 tonnes (t). It is the biggest ever FPSO to be operated by Total.

The Egina FPSO is capable of producing 208,000 barrels of oil a day and has a storage capacity of 2.3 million barrels of oil.

Other subsea infrastructure facilities for the deep-sea offshore project include 52km of oil production and water injection flow lines, 20km of gas export pipelines, 80km of umbilicals, and  12 flexible jumpers.

Contractors involved

Dover Engineering along with J P Kenny Engineering and MCS Kenny (subsidiaries of Wood Group) completed the front-end engineering and design (FEED) work for the subsea production systems (SPS) and umbilical flowlines and risers (UFR) for the Egina oilfield development project in July 2010.

Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) was awarded a turnkey engineering, procurement, construction, installation, and commissioning (EPCIC) contract worth $3bn for the Egina FPSO in 2013.

Nexans was subcontracted for the supply of cables for the Egina FPSO, while MTE provided the design, engineering, fabrication services and additional heat shields for the FPSO.

SHI subcontracted Vallourec for the supply of 1,700t of pipeline segments for the Egima FPSO.

Vallourec, in association with local Nigerian company Bell Oil & Gas, also supplied 24,000t of subsea line pipe, 16,000t of flowlines, and 8,000t of steel for a riser pipe-in-pipe construction for the Egina oilfield development.

LADOL Integrated Logistics Enterprise provided logistics services during the construction of the Egina’s FPSO unit.

Abbott Risk Consulting was contracted to provide safety engineering design studies for the Egina FPSO in 2008.

Saipem was awarded the engineering, procurement, commissioning and installation (EPCI) contract worth $3bn for the subsea production system of the Egina development project in June 2013.

Saipem performed the fabrication work for the subsea systems at the Saipem Rumoulumeni Yard in Port Harcourt near Nigeria.

TechnipFMC was awarded the EPCI contract worth $1.2bn for the subsea production system of the Egina oilfield development in 2013.

Aveon Offshore was subcontracted by TechnipFMC for the fabrication of the subsea production systems for the Egina oilfield.