Otakikpo production ramping up after offshore pipeline completed

Oil & gas company Lekoil has completed and commissioned the six-kilometer offshore pipeline leading from the storage tanks to the tanker offloading manifold at the Otakikpo field in Nigeria.

To remind, the company said in December of last year that the Otakikpo oil was flowing to onshore storage tanks and that it would be evacuated upon the completion of the offshore pipeline.

Lekoil said on Monday that all onshore facilities and the offshore pipeline were signed off by the regulators and that continuous production from the Otakikpo Marginal Field was under way.

Otakikpo is located in an in oil mining lease (OML) 11, adjacent to the shoreline in the south-eastern part of the Niger Delta. Production in the OML 11 is jointly developed by Green Energy International as the operator and Lekoil as a technical and financial partner.

According to Lekoil, the initial production from the four production strings across Otakikpo-002 and -003 wells is in line with company expectations.

Production rates are 5,000 bopd, per current regulatory approvals for production start. The company will focus on gathering production data and optimizing well performance.

With regular exports underway, Lekoil is focused on ramping up to the production to 10,000 bopd by the end of the second quarter of 2017.

Lekan Akinyanmi, Lekoil’s CEO, said: “Lekoil is now a producing company. I would again like to thank the entire team that has worked so hard on this project, our partner Green Energy, our investors and debt financiers, our host communities and our government regulators for their continuing support.

“The Otakikpo project began in a swamp location with no infrastructure, and our team delivered production in under two years with, importantly, nearly 915,000 hours without any lost-time injuries.”

New CFO

Also on Monday, Lekoil named Bruce Burrows as the company’s chief financial officer (CFO) with effect from February 27, 2017.

For the past six years, Burrows has been the CFO of Seven Energy, a private integrated gas company in southeast Nigeria, with upstream oil and gas interests in the region. Before Seven Energy, he worked for 14 years as the Finance Director of JKX Oil & Gas.

Burrows is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Australia & New Zealand and initially held various positions at Ernst & Young in both Wellington and London.

Samuel Adegboyega, Chairman of Lekoil, said: “We are delighted to welcome Bruce to Lekoil. His experience working in Nigeria, his knowledge of the investment and banking communities and his experience at a producing company will be invaluable to us as we embark on the next chapter in Lekoil’s development.”