Usan Oil Feild Produces Below Capacity

The Usan Oil field operated by the French giant-Total-is yet to produce the 180,000 barrels of oil expected from it as the project is still undergoing commissioning, it was learnt.

The $8billion oil field is one of Nigeria’s mega fields in the deep water. The oil field is located in Oil Mining Lease (OML) 138 in water depth of between 750 and 800 metres, and about 100Km off Nigerian coast, South-South East of Port Harcourt, Rivers State. It is expected to produce 180,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) and production from the field will last for 25 years.

Initially, the field was targeted to pump the first oil by January this year, but ended up doing that around April. However, the production is yet to hit 180,000 bdp as the company is going through final commissioning of the project.

An industry source told our correspondent that the asset since it commenced production in April has not attained the 180,000 bpd production although it produces well over 100,000 bpd.

The source said: “Usan since April is still going through its final phases of commissioning. As a brand new machine, it takes quite a long time to make sure that every module is working as installed,” referring to the floating production, storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) and other production equipment.

The source said the long time, which the commissioning takes, is not because of safety alone but also to be sure that those who provided them actually provided the right thing because if they don’t work as installed they would be sent back again to the factory.

“Those modules have guarantee dates and if you don’t test them within the period, then you are on your own. But the field is doing well above 100,000 barrels per day.

Usan field was discovered in February 2002, but actual drilling began in June 2009 from where the company set a period of four years to achieve first oil, with $ 2 billion investment commitment each year.

The Managing Director of Total Upstream Companies in Nigeria, Mr Guy Maurice said that Usan is Total’s second deepwater development in Nigeria after Akpo. The Usan project  is a production sharing contract (PSC) with the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as concessionaire, Total as operator, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Nexen working together.

Maurice explained that besides significantly boosting Nigeria’s oil production, Usan placed very strong emphasis on Nigerian Content during its development, with nearly 11 million man-hours of work in-country, including engineering fabrication, assembling and offshore integration of equipment.

“Much of the project packages were produced in the yards in the Niger Delta locations of Port Harcourt, Onne and Rumuolumeni in Rivers State, Warri in Delta State as well as Snake Island in Lagos by Nigerian-based suppliers and employees,” he said.

Usan project is also a beneficiary of a $20 billion five years investment projects in Nigeria by the company. Projects that are beneficiaries of the investment include Usan and Egina fields as well as the construction of the 45.6km Obite, Ubeta and Rumuji (O.U.R) pressure gas pipeline, among others.