Shell awards subsea contracts for deepwater oil development offshore Nigeria

Partners in a large oilfield offshore Nigeria have made their final investment decision (FID) to proceed with the development.

Shell confirmed the FID for Bonga North, which will lead it to install a subsea network to tie back 16 wells - eight for oil and gas production and eight for water injection - to the Bonga floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility which has been in operation since 2005.

Saipem’s consortium including local partners KOA Oil & Gas and Aveon Offshore won a US$1Bn contract for 

engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) of risers, flowlines, umbilicals and associated subsea structures.

This Italian group said the design and fabrication activities will be carried out locally involving Nigerian suppliers and subcontractors.

“Bonga North currently has an estimated recoverable resource volume of more than 300M barrels of oil equivalent and will reach a peak production of 110,000 barrels of oil a day, with first oil anticipated by the end of the decade,” Shell said.

Offshore well drilling is expected to commence in 2025, last for four to five years, and and offshore installation work in 2027.

“This is another significant investment, which will help us to maintain stable liquids production from our advantaged opstream portfolio,” said Shell integrated gas and upstream director, Zoë Yujnovich.

Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Co operates Bonga with a 55% stake, in partnership with Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (20%), Nigerian Agip Exploration (12.5%) and TotalEnergies Exploration and Production Nigeria (12.5%), on behalf of the Nigerian National Petroleum Co.

Bonga is in water depths exceeding 1,000 m in oil mining licence 118. The FPSO has the capacity to produce 225,000 barrels of oil per day and has produced more than 1Bn barrels of crude oil since 2005.