Latest News

Nigeria commissions its first fully owned floating vessel in order to boost oil production and exports

One of the companies that developed it has announced that Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, has commissioned its very first Floating Storage Offloading vessel (FSOD) near its Bonny Export Terminal.

The FSO with a capacity of 2.2 million barrels aims to increase crude oil production and transportation from Oil Mining Lease 18 in the Eastern Niger Delta. The FSO is expected to reduce the reliance on pipelines, and minimize risks associated with theft of oil and vandalism.

The FSO Cawthorne is a joint venture between Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd, which owns a 55% stake in OML 18, Sahara Group and Eroton Exploration and Production. Sahara Energy announced in a press release that they are stationed off Bonny, the Nigerian export port for high-grade Bonny Light crude.

Tosin Etomi is the head of commercial and planing at Asharami Energy. This company is part of the Sahara Group. He said that this vessel will help reduce carbon emissions from barge movement and improve evacuation safety.

The double-hull vessel is a converted Very Large Crude Carrier. It was designed to receive crude oil, store it, and then offload it to export tankers. This will address long-standing logistics constraints, such as limited capacity of barges, siltation in berthing slots, and delays during ship-to-ship transfer.

The OML 18 production target for 2025 of 50,000 barrels a day is expected to be met. (Writing and editing by Emelia Sithole Matarise; Chijioke Ahuocha)

(source: Reuters)