ExxonMobil predicts huge oil production for W/Africa�s deepwater basin

General Manager in charge of deepwater at ExxonMobil operations in Nigeria, Mr. Jide Ayo-Vaughan, said production from the West African regional industry operations has steadily grown from 85, 000 barrels per day in 2000 to its current position of 2.5 million barrels per day.

Nigeria�s deepwater output is currently at 800,000 barrels per day, providing job opportunities that supported National Engineering and Technical Company (NETCO) to post revenue of over N5.0 billion in 2010.

NETCO which is Nigeria�s premier indigenous engineering company said it recorded the impressive turnover amidst downtime in the industry.

NETCO�s Managing Director, Binitie Cassidy, told newsmen on the sidelines of the Offshore West Africa (OWA 2011) oil and gas conference which ended in Accra, Ghana at the weekend that “the global financial meltdown, the Petroleum Industry Bill and the unrest situation in the delta region, negatively impacted on the volume of jobs we had during last year”.

He however observed that the company was going into procurement and construction services through partnerships to increase their capital base.

He stated that the PIB, which is suppose to be a twin to the local content act is going through a lot of struggle in the National Assembly, which he said when passed, there are bound to be challenges.

He stressed that the company has spare headed the execution and practice of engineering jobs, procurement and construction supervision in all the project management required in the turn around maintenance of Nigeria�s refineries.

To this extent, he added that the company does not want to export jobs to lift the level and standard of living of Nigerian citizens to be dependent on themselves as the International Oil Companies have a mandate to support the government to bring out many jobs to the country.

“It is part of our mandate that we train our engineers and build capacities. With the Nigerian content bill now in place, and the IOCs still bent on moving jobs abroad, we should also be thinking of how we can come up with strategies to keep the jobs within the country,” he said.

Cassidy informed that NETCO is in Ghana to give maximum support and confidence on technological awareness to partner with them citing how they started with an American firm, Bechtel, Inc.

“We are offering ourselves to Ghana National Oil Corporation and encouraging them to start an engineering arm, now that they are producing oil, they will want to refine, build petrochemical plants to keep adding value rather than just exporting, which Nigeria is guilty of.

NETCO started commercial operations in August 1990 alongside Bechtel and executed more than 50 engineering projects, which include Chevron�s Onshore Gas Plant of the Escravos Gas Project Phase 1, a project that involved more than 143,000 engineering manhours.

Elaborating extensively on the deepwater production for West Africa, Executive Director and General Manager Deepwater of Exxonmobil, Mr Jide Ayo Vaughan stated that “deepwater production has been the biggest success story in West Africa in the past decade, from 85,000 barrels of oil per day in 2000, production has risen steadily to 2.5 million barrels of oil per day in 2010, a 30 fold increase. Over 25 billion of oil equivalent barrels have been discovered in deepwater West Africa since the early nineties and the potential remains significant”. He enthused.

Source : Daily Champion