The Nigerian Government has been urged to issue licenses for exploration. The suggestion was made by the Chief Executive Officer of Total, Patrick Pouyanne, who also disclosed their are plans to expand Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas company.
Pouyanne said he hopes the post-election period will see the issue of exploration licences by the candidate who emerges as the winner of the presidential election, stressing that the oil and gas sector has been dormant in exploration activities due to uncertainties and the ongoing discussions over oil industry regulation.
“I hope the new government that will come after the election will launch new tenders for awarding new exploration licences,” Pouyanne said on Monday.
Pouyanne also disclosed that the positive market has prompted Total to expand its Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas company project this year.
“The market is very good today to do that; it is a very interesting project and the partners are in line to develop it… 2019 should be the year of expanding Nigeria LNG”.
Ikike Project
Months from now, Total will continue work on the 60,000 barrels-per-day Ikike project. The project, including the 70,000 bpd deepwater Preowei project, which would help Total increase its oil production. Ikike project is part of several projects the group has earmarked in Nigeria for a final investment decision.
“There is a huge potential in Nigeria, it is probably the most prolific country in West Africa in terms of oil and gas and it is time to launch new projects and we are working on many of them,” Pouyanne said.
This month, Total started production at the Egina deepwater oilfield off the coast of Nigeria, which Nairametrics reported could suffer setback last year.
“On the same area as Egina, we have Preowei, which could be connected to Egina, We are working on that,” Pouyanne said.
Total Uganda oilfield
Meanwhile, Total is planning on making a final investment decision on the period to start production in Uganda, as the company is developing Uganda’s first oilfield with China’s CNOOC. Uganda has said it expected to start producing oil in 2021.
Total is also considering buying a stake in a refinery to process crude from the field which is due to be operational by 2023.