Oil & Energy

Egina, Pushing Nigerian Content Frontier

Published

8 years ago

July 16, 2018

This is the concluding part of a keynote address by the Deputy Managing Director, Deep Water, Total Upstream Companies in Nigeria, Mr. Ahmadu-Kida Musa, at the Nigeria Oil And Gas Conference and Exhibition (NOG) 2018, held at ICC, Abuja, July 2, 2018
Egina Project It was against the back drop of this new approach to Nigerian Content that Total took the Final Investment Decision to develop Egina in 2013, three years after the Nigerian Oil & Gas Industry Content Development Act became law. The result is that Egina became a test case for the NOGICD Act.
Egina is the latest of Total’s deep-water developments and the third project of its kind developed by Total in Nigeria, after Akpo and Usan. These projects have brought progressive increase in levels of Nigerian Content and this is well illustrated by the percentage of total project workload performed in Nigeria: from 44% for Usan, Total recorded 60% for Akpo and now 77% will be achieved for Egina just before the FPSO sails away from the SHI-MCI Yard in LADOL Island, Lagos where it is currently moored for topsides integration works.
In the coming weeks, the FPSO will sail away to Egina field, which is located in OML130, approximately 150 kilometres offshore Port Harcourt. It is the deepest offshore development carried out so far in Nigeria, in water depths of over 1,500 meters and the project is designed to produce 200,000 barrels per day of oil at plateau. In addition to the oil, the Egina field will produce gas.
Associated gas will be partly re-injected into the reservoir to maintain reservoir pressure and partly channelled to supply the domestic gas market.
Nigeria is proud that Egina has advanced Nigerian Content to new levels in many domains and I’ll mention a few of them.
Firstly, Project management: For Egina, all the Project Management teams, for both Total and the main EPC Contractors, have been based in Lagos – a first for a Nigerian FPSO project. The location of these teams in Nigeria to carry out engineering and procurement activities has generated significant employment opportunities at various skill levels ranging from office administrative staff to top level engineers and managers.
The Detailed Engineering of the Egina FPSO Topsides was executed in-country by Samsung with a consortium of Nigerian engineering companies (NETCO, DeltaAfrik and IESL), employing about 250 Nigerian engineers. Similarly, the Detailed Engineering for all the other work packages was executed in Nigeria, in association with local engineering companies like DeltaTek and Crestech.
Egina also created employment in Nigeria during the construction phase. It generated 24 direct million man-hours (77% of total project workload), which is over 3,000 persons on average during five years.
Significant training hours were also recorded on the project. The objective set with NCDMB was to train 200 engineers and technicians and Egina surpassed these targets recording over 560, 000 man-hours of human capacity development training across Egina contracts.
The project led the development of Infrastructure. A new fabrication and Integration yard has been built and it is Africa’s first FPSO integration quay. It was constructed under the FPSO package contract by SHI-MCI, within Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics Base on LADOL Island.
Today, the Egina project is proudly the first to record the fabrication and integration of FPSO topsides in Nigeria. Six of the 18 topside modules were fabricated and integrated at the SHI-MCI facility at LADOL. The Egina FPSO arrived from Korea in the last week of January for the integration of the locally fabricated modules and this integration was successfully completed in May without incident.
In addition to the new SHI-MCI integration quay,several existing yards and manufacturing sites in other parts of Nigeria were upgraded for the fabrication of various components of the Egina project in Port-Harcourt, Onne and Lagos.
Subsea Production Manifold Fabrication in Nigeria. Six numbers complex 263 metric tonnes production manifolds having six slots were done in AVEON yard.
Xmas Trees Assembly and Testing at TFMCOnne yard. For the first time, all Xmas trees were fully assembled and tested in Nigeria for a deep offshore project of this magnitude.
Buoy Fabrication and Launching. The Egina Loading buoy was fabricated in Port-Harcourt in the same yard as the Manifolds.
Overall, an impressive 60,000 tons of equipment were fabricated in Nigeria and this represents 35% of fabrication for the entire project.
This leads me to the last and final part of my address.
The Next Frontier
On Tuesday, February 13, 2018, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu and the Executive Secretary, Nigerian Content Monitoring & Development Board, Engr. SimbiWabote visited the Egina FPSO on LADOL Island.
After a tour of the unit, Engr. Wabote threw a challenge at the Industry by announcing that Total with Egina Project has set the bar for others and the next target “is to stretch the limit to get more for Nigeria. Our aspiration is that come the next seven to eight years, full integration of an FPSO must happen in Nigeria.”
This remark offers a very clear ‘hint’ as to which direction the Nigerian Oil & Gas Industry should be looking as we move past Egina. On Egina, six out of the 18 topside modules of the FPSO were fabricated in Nigeria, lifted in Nigeria and fully integrated in Nigeria.
Assembly of the Integrated Control and Safety System of the FPSO will be fully performed in-country. If this pace is sustained for the next eight years and with the right policies and investor-friendly legislation, I don’t see why the prophecy of the Executive Secretary wouldn’t come true!
With several large deep-water discoveries still to be developed, such as Bonga South West or Owowo, we know that the resources are there. All the yards that have been involved in the development of the Egina project need activity to maintain their infrastructure and the improved competency levels of their human capital.
Both government and the Industry have a critical role to play here. In the past three years, to keep the industry alive, all the operators have been focusing on reducing the cost of new deep-water projects in order to make sure that they can sanction projects and bring value at $50 per barrel.
While the operators are all trying to tighten their belt in line with the realities of the times, it is important that we put in place sustainable PSC and Gas terms as this is a fundamental requirement for continued investment in Nigeria’s deep offshore. And the development of new projects is critical to maintaining industry capacities.
As the industry moves even further offshore, the need for this know-how cannot be over-emphasised. Nigeria must move up to a level where it is able to meet the competency needs of other new entrants within the Africa sub-region and be considered as a technological hub for the region.
Nigerian Content in the Nigerian Oil & Gas Industry, through careful legislation and government policies could also have great impact in other sectors of the economy, including: information & communication technology/telecommunication agriculture, engineering and construction, manufacturing, transport and storage, power and finance, etc.
The next frontier is very broad and filled with opportunities. But it is also lined with a lot of challenges that Total believe are surmountable. Let’s take the bold steps and decisions that we all require to move into the next phase.
Again, a slogan we have always used, “Its always impossible until it is made possible”. Nigerian Content (NC) is possible.

Oil & Energy

Can Cheap Batteries Deliver COP31’s 35% Electrification Goal?

Published

1 day ago

November 9, 2026

The Tide

Electrification will be the major focus of the COP31 United Nations climate conference, to hold in Antalya, Türkiye, from today, November 9 to 20, 2026. The host country will invite the attending nations to sign onto a voluntary pledge to reach 35 percent electrification on a global level by 2035. J

ust a year ago, this target may have seemed overly ambitious, but now, experts say that a number of factors, including volatile oil and gas markets stemming from the war in Iran, paired with enormous advances in clean energy technologies, have put that goal within “striking distance.”

The months-long closure of the Strait of Hormuz has catalyzed the clean energy transition and the rate of electrification around the world. Before the United States and Israel began their military offensive in Iran back in February of this year, one fifth of the world’s oil and gas trade flowed through the Strait of Hormuz. Its abrupt closure therefore sent global oil and gas markets into turmoil and sent energy-importing countries around the world scrambling for alternatives, especially ones that they could produce and control on their home soil. And, just like that, renewable energy became the new face of energy security.

“Wind and solar cannot be embargoed, blockaded, or shut off by a foreign power,” David Frykman, General Partner at Stockholm-based venture capital group Norrsken, wrote in an op-ed for Fortune earlier this year. “Every terawatt-hour of domestic renewable generation is a terawatt-hour that no adversary can weaponize.”

But there is another, quieter force that has made this rapid global pivot toward renewable energies possible – the energy storage boom. Energy storage is critical to ensure grid stability in the face of rapid electrification and the increasing representation of intermittent energy sources like wind and solar power in national energy mixes. Major advances in the sector in recent years have made battery storage more affordable and more scalable than ever before – just in time for the world’s most recent bout of ‘fossilflation.’

“What’s really become a game-changer in the past two years is the rapid deployment of large-scale batteries that can hang onto ever larger amounts of power to be used throughout the day to smooth out demand and avoid overtaxing the grid,” Forbes wrote in a Monday report.

The second quarter of this year saw the United States’ largest-ever energy storage expansion, at 20.2 gigawatt-hours of additional capacity, according to a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association and Benchmark Mineral Intelligence. That puts this year’s total additions at 30.8 GWh – and counting.

“Although President Trump is no fan of renewable energy or batteries, utility-scale energy storage capacity still nearly doubled to 165 GWh from 88 GWh in the first 18 months of his administration,” the Forbes article goes on to detail. “Grid operators, utilities and data center developers are all buying batteries as fast as they can to meet power demand and improve grid reliability. As a result, battery energy storage systems supplied more electricity to the grid in the year’s first eight months than in all of 2025.”

Ironically, despite his best efforts, Donald Trump is overseeing one of the United States’ most significant clean energy booms in the nation’s history as solar and wind have simply become too cheap to fail. And the United States is not alone. Buoyed by a flood of cheap solar panels and battery storage systems coming out of China, even the world’s poorest countries are experiencing clean energy revolutions.

“Some countries are pulling off stunningly fast energy transitions, adding solar so rapidly, it’s become a major source of electricity over the course of years — not decades,” reports CNN.

Pakistan has become the surprise poster child of this trend as residents install rooftop solar and batteries faster than any other market on Earth, as these systems provide electricity more cheaply and reliably than the country’s own beleaguered energy infrastructure. In addition, emerging economies including Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Morocco, Kenya, and Namibia have all overtaken the United States – the world’s largest economy – in their clean energy transitions.

By Haley Zaremba

Oil & Energy

MAN, Ministry Tackle High Electricity Costs, Erratic Supply

Published

1 day ago

November 9, 2026

The Tide

The Manufacturers Association of Nigeria has said it is working with the Federal Ministry of Power to address high electricity tariffs, unreliable grid supply and rising energy costs that are undermining industrial production and competitiveness in the country.

The association said the collaboration would focus on developing sustainable energy solutions for manufacturers, including renewable energy, battery storage, captive power generation and improved electricity distribution.

Speaking during the second edition of the Manufacturers Energy Security and Energy Efficiency Summit in Lagos, the President, MAN, Dr. Ifeanyi Okoye, regretted that high electricity tariffs, unreliable grid supply and heavy dependence on fossil fuels had made industrial production exceptionally difficult.

Okoye said energy expenses consumed nearly half of some factories’ operating budgets, weakening their competitiveness, increasing product prices and threatening jobs.

He said manufacturers had continued to operate their own power infrastructure despite paying for electricity from the national grid.

“When energy expenses claim nearly half of a factory’s operating budget, competitiveness evaporates, retail prices skyrocket, and jobs are placed on the line,” he said.

Okoye said the association was moving beyond advocacy to implement practical solutions through its Industrial Energy Cost Reduction and Energy Support Programme, as key partners in delivering the initiative.

According to him, the programme would promote factory-roof solar installations, battery energy storage systems, captive natural gas generation and smart energy management networks to reduce production costs and protect manufacturers from global fuel price shocks.

He, however, stressed that manufacturers needed affordable, long-term financing to undertake the energy transition.

“We cannot finance 21st-century industrial transitions with 30-day commercial bank loans at cut-throat interest rates,” Okoye said.

He said the summit would bring financial institutions, climate funds and green investors together to develop long-tenured, low-interest financing instruments, carbon credit opportunities and asset-financing

Also speaking, the Minister of Power, Joseph Tegbe, warned industrial customers against unauthorised electricity connections.

He disclosed that investigations had uncovered about 14 industrial customers along a particular corridor who owed more than N400m in unpaid electricity charges over several years.

Tegbe said such practices deprived the electricity sector of revenue needed to sustain power supply and unfairly burdened consumers who paid their bills.

“Such conduct deprives the sector of revenue that we need to sustain the supply, and unfairly burdens consumers who pay honestly,” Tegbe said.

The minister vowed to recover the outstanding charges and hold those responsible accountable, urging MAN to encourage its members to maintain lawful electricity connections and comply with applicable regulations.

Tegbe acknowledged that manufacturers continued to struggle with electricity interruptions, poor power quality, vandalism and electricity theft, adding that the government was directing investments towards addressing the underlying problems.

Speaking on behalf of manufacturers, the MAN South-East Chairman, Ada Chukwudozie, said energy had become a question of survival and competitiveness for Nigerian manufacturers.

She said manufacturers were increasingly financing and managing their own electricity infrastructure while struggling with rising production costs and limited access to capital.

“We are effectively running a second power system paid for by ourselves, besides the grid we also pay for. And that is why for the Nigerian manufacturer, energy is no longer simply an operational issue. It is a question of survival and competitiveness,” Chukwudozie said.

She explained that unreliable electricity supply forced manufacturers to make difficult choices between purchasing energy and raw materials, maintaining equipment and paying workers.

The regulator added that manufacturers could strengthen their competitiveness by adopting cleaner energy sources as international markets increasingly imposed environmental and carbon-related requirements on products and supply chains.

Oil & Energy

Reps Panel Dismisses Petition Against NIPCO gas Licence

Published

1 day ago

November 9, 2026

The Tide

The House of Representatives has dismissed a petition seeking the cancellation of gas distribution licences awarded to NIPCO Plc, ruling that the petitioners failed to provide credible evidence to substantiate their allegations.

The decision followed a review by the House Sub-Committee on the Petition concerning NIPCO Plc, which rejected the complaint filed by the Nigerian Energy Security Watch Group (NESWG) for lacking substance and evidential support.

The petition had called for an investigation into, and the suspension and cancellation of, gas distribution licences issued by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) to NIPCO for Lagos, Ogun, Oyo and Osun states, as well as the Lagos and Lekki Free Trade Zones.

Announcing the decision last Thursday, the Chairman of the Sub-Committee, Peter Aniekwe, said the petitioners relied on hearsay and failed to establish any wrongdoing in the licensing process.

“At its sitting today, the Sub-Committee resolved not to proceed with the investigation, and the petition is accordingly dismissed,” Aniekwe said.

The committee, which also includes Dahaltu Shehu, was constituted in October to examine the petition. It was granted an additional 14 days on October 26 to conclude its assignment.

Aniekwe said the issuance and regulation of gas distribution licences were statutory responsibilities of the NMDPRA under the Petroleum Industry Act, while stressing that the National Assembly would continue to exercise oversight over the process.

He disclosed that the regulator had committed to completing and rolling out gas distribution licensing in the fourth quarter of 2026, adding that the committee would monitor the implementation.

“Nigerians deserve a gas market that is open, competitive and safe, and investors deserve rules that are clear and stable,” he said.

The lawmaker reaffirmed the House’s commitment to considering petitions from individuals and organisations with genuine concerns about the petroleum sector, saying “each complaint would be assessed on its merits”.