Total’s Egina FPSO Arrives in Nigeria
Friday 26 January 2018
Nigeria’s oil and gas industry wednesday recorded another milestone as the $3.3 billion Floating Production Storage Offloading (FPSO) unit for the 200,000 barrels per day capacity Egina Deepwater oilfield arrived the country from South Korea.
The Egina oilfield, which is being developed at the cost of $16 billion, would come on stream at the end of 2018.
The FPSO, which was built for Total Upstream Nigeria Limited, (TUPNI) by Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI), sailed away from the quay side at Samsung Yard in Geoje, South Korea, on October 31, 2017, on its voyage to Nigeria.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Total Upstream Nigeria Limited, (TUPNI) and other partners in the Egina project – CNOOC, SAPETRO and PETROBRAS, welcomed the FPSO, which berthed at the newly built 500-metre FPSO integration quayside at the Samsung Yard (SHI-MCI Yard), at the LADOL Free Zone in Lagos.
Six out of the 18 modules of the Egina FPSO were fabricated in Nigeria which is a first time achievement for the country.
With state of the art equipment and technology know-how, SHI-MCI has the capacity to fabricate 10,000 metric tonnes and is recording high productivity at an early stage of its operations due principally to the influx of Samsung’s technical expertise which has greatly aided speedy technology transfer.
Samsung invested over $300 million for the construction of the fabrication yard and through SHI-MCI, has committed to technology transfer and training of local capacity in the field of shipbuilding and offshore plant manufacturing technologies.
The Egina project has set the bar very high in terms of compliance with Local Content laws with over 1,000 Nigerians employed in various capacities.
The arrival of the Egina FPSO in Nigeria is a huge milestone towards the completion of the Egina Project and eventual recovery of first oil.