By Emeka Ugwuanyi
Oil production from one of Nigeria’s prime deepwater oil fields, Egina, is fast declining with an output of 91.23 thousand barrels of oil per day (kbopd) as at the end of April 2023.
The TotalEnergies operated field which showed great prospects at the beginning of its operation, produced a peak 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) by mid-2019.
However, Total and co-venturers are not relenting as they are exploring and developing new wells to shore up the production.
According to a publication by Africa Oil + Gas Report magazine, “the Egina field in deep offshore Nigeria has plunged further lower than the symbolic 100,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd).
“Its April 2023 output of 91,266 bopd is an even stronger signal of its unrelenting pace of decline since plunging to 145,000 barrels of oil per day, as of March 2022, a clear 25 per cent decline in two years of production.”
The Egina field commenced production in December 2018 and peaked at 200,000 bopd in mid-2019, the report noted, adding that peak output, as a rule, for a field size of Egina with (>500Million barrels estimated recoverable reserves) should take at least three years before descent.
However, on the contrary, Nigeria’s youngest large sized deepwater development started crashing rapidly from peak output in 2020, it stated.
The field now delivers less than Chevron operated Agbami and Shell operated Bonga complex, both of which have been in production for over 12 years.
Egina’s rapid fall contrasts the argument that Nigeria’s output decline is largely the result of pipeline sabotage which obstructs evacuation from the flowstations to the terminals. It also challenges the notion that wells shut in out of economic or physical challenges are the major culprits for the country’s production slide. What this precipitous drop calls for is massive investment in new field development away from easy targets of saboteurs.
Total has commenced a nine well drilling campaign seven development and two exploration wells to halt the decline, but it is not clear if hook up of the new producers has commenced.
