Yemisi Izuora
Oil major Total has said that production at the Ofon oilfield, which feeds into exports of Nigeria’s Amenam crude oil has resumed though on at a snail pace but force majeure remains in place.
The company declared force majeure on exports of Amenam in late April, sources told Reuters.
A spokeswoman for the French oil company said that production at the Ofon field had resumed in early May and would “gradually ramp-up back to full production.”
She added that force majeure would be lifted once the field was back to full production.
Exports of the grade are typically around 100,000 barrels per day (bpd).
The Ofon Field is an oil and natural gas field located in the Oil Mining Lease (OML) 102, about 65km offshore in the south-eastern coast of Nigeria.
The OML 102 is owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, 60 per cent and is operated by Total Exploration-Production Nigeria, TEPNG – 40 per cent formerly Elf Petroleum Nigeria.
The proved and probable reserves at Ofon are about 350 million barrels of oil equivalent. Phase one of Ofon Field started production in December 1997.
Phase two of the offshore Ofon Field development began in February 2012 and production commenced in January 2015.
Phase two taps the undeveloped reserves at the Ofon Field and the development mostly focuses on producing natural gas. The recovered gas from the field is being compressed and transferred to the shore.
The second phase is intended to increase the production from the field from 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) to 90,000boepd. The project involved installation of four new platforms that include two production platforms, one accommodation platform for 124 people and a processing platform.