The two wells in Aje oil field located in Oil Mining Lease (OML) 113, offshore Lagos, have tested in excess of 10,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day, Panoro Energy, an independent oil and gas company based in the United Kingdom, has announced.
After spending over two decades exploring for hydrocarbon resources off the coast of Lagos, Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum, in partnership with Panoro Energy ASA and First Hydrocarbon Nigeria (FHN) Limited, among others, had on May 3, 2016 achieved first oil on Aje field, catapulting Lagos State into the league of oil and gas producing states in the country.
In its first quarter 2016 financial results released at the weekend, Panoro announced that the two wells in Aje field have tested in excess of 5,000 bopd each.
Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mr. John Hamilton, CEO of Panoro, commented that his company was extremely pleased to have reached first oil production at Aje, offshore Nigeria.
“This is a transformational milestone and establishes Panoro as a full cycle E&P company. In Gabon, we continue to see enormous potential upside at Dussafu where we are working on securing partners to drill an exploration well. We feel this well will be the catalyst to move the project forward and unlock its inherent value. Having achieved production at Aje, we have established a strong platform from which to grow Panoro and add value for our shareholders. Looking forward, our strategy is to now expand our portfolio by acquiring further high quality production and development assets in West Africa,” Hamilton explained.
The first two wells in Aje Are expected to peak at 12,000 barrels of oil per day, and the flow rates would increase as more wells are drilled on the field.
However, of greater significance also is the disclosure that the oil field holds untapped reserves of about 650 billion cubic feet (bcf), which if harnessed in two to three years’ time, could supply Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub, all the gas feedstock it needs for the thermal power stations and other manufacturing concerns domiciled in the state and its environs.
The subsea installation activities had been underway at Aje since January and were completed in early March, ready for the hook up of the Front Puffin Floating Production Storage Offshore (FPSO), which arrived in Nigeria on March 16.
Oil produced from the Aje field will be stored in the Front Puffin which has a production capacity of 40,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) and storage capacity of 750,000 barrels.
Located in the extreme western part offshore Nigeria, adjacent to the Benin border in the Dahomey Basin, the field is situated in water depths ranging from 100 to 1,500 metres, about 24 kilometres from the coast.
The field is situated 64 kilometres from Lagos and 12 kilometres close to the West African gas pipeline operated by Chevron.
The current Aje partnership, which was formed in August 2013, is made up of Yinka Folawiyo Petroleum (operator), New AGE (African Global Energy), FHN, Energy Equity Resources (EER), Panoro, and Jacka Resources.
