Italian oil major, Eni, is positioning to embark on deepwater exploration investment in Nigeria after President Bola Tinubu met its chief executive Officer, Mr Claudio Descalzi, in Abuja to discuss the company’s deepwater expansion plans.
This follows the recent conversion of Oil Prospecting Licence 245 (OPL 245) into new development and exploration licenses.
Under an agreement with the Federal Government of Nigeria, OPL 245 has been converted into two Petroleum Mining Leases (PML 102 and 103) and two Petroleum Prospecting Leases (PPL 2011 and 2012), following a mutually agreed settlement of claims and the discontinuation of arbitration proceedings at the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID).
Nigerian Agip Exploration Limited will operate the licenses alongside partners Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited and Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (SNEPCO).
The conversion clears the path for the development of the Zabazaba and Etan deepwater fields under PML 102 and 103.
The Etan-Zabazaba project is estimated to contain approximately 500 MMbbl of reserves and is planned around a 150,000-bopd floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility. Associated gas volumes of up to 200 MMscf/d at peak are expected to be exported to Nigeria LNG.
Eni, which has operated in Nigeria since 1962, also discussed its broader offshore portfolio, including interests in the Abo and Bonga fields and Nigeria LNG.
The company recently increased its stake in OML 118 to 15 per cent, reinforcing its position in Nigeria’s deepwater sector, where it currently produces approximately 55,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day on an equity basis.
Business Post reported earlier this week that Nigeria has broken up the OPL 245 oil block into four new assets to be operated by Eni and Shell, potentially settling the future of the field at the centre of one of the oil industry’s biggest historic corruption trials.
The agreement clears the way for the development of OPL 245, one of Nigeria’s biggest deepwater reserves that has remained untapped for almost three decades amid overlapping lawsuits in multiple countries.
The block is estimated to hold up to 9 billion barrels of oil equivalent in reserves, enough to rival Nigeria’s entire proven reserves if fully developed.