The Nigerian company Allied Energy and Italian oil and gas major Eni (ENI.MI) have started pumping oil from Nigeria’s offshore Oyo oilfield with an initial output of about 25,000 barrels per day (bpd), Eni said on Tuesday.
Eni, which has been operating in Nigeria for almost 50 years, said in a statement its total equity production there averaged 130,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2009.
Oyo is located in the Niger Delta Deep offshore, about 75 kilometres off the Nigerian coast, with oil produced from two subsea wells at a water depth of 400 meters, Eni said.
Allied Energy holds 57.5 percent of the field, Eni holds 40 percent, while energy company Camac has the remaining 2.5 percent. The subsea wells are connected to the Armada Perdana Floating Production Storage and Offloading facility (FPSO).
The FPSO has a treatment capacity of 40,000 barrels of liquids per day, with gas treatment and re-injection facilities, and can store up to one million barrels of crude oil.
The associated gas will be re-injected into the Oyo field reservoir by a third well to prevent flaring and boost oil recovery, Eni said.