Non passage of PIB affects Rig count in Nigeria. By John Meze Experts in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria say the non passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), which is considered the only panacea to the decay in the industry, is a major hindrance to the increase of rig count in drilling exercise in the country. The bill has been in the National Assembly for over six years, They say that given the current situation, drilling activities will experience a decline in the country in Nigeria in 2015, unless the bill is passed before the commencement of full electioneering. Though practitioners in the industry had hoped for an increase in activities following the ministerial consent being given for seven acreages purchased from Shell and Chevron, the number of rigs working on any location in the country has fallen from 42 to 25 in the last 12 months. It was gathered that rigs brought in to the country by indigenous companies about six years ago are still lying unused, due to non passage of the bill, which many companies fear, in one way or the other, would affect operations in the upstream, midstream and downstream sub-sectors. The belief is that there is little chance that they will be contracted next year. Presently, Shell has only one onshore rig drilling and one deep-water rig. ExxonMobil was active in only one deep-water location, as was TOTAL, Shell and ENI. Further, checks informed that none of these had any rig deployed on land or shallow water, while Chevron is active on two deep-water locations, but had been absent from onshore and shallow water for two years. However, indigenous oil and gas companies such as Seplat deploying four rigs on four locations, NPDC on two onshore locations and a shallow water well; Conoil, active with two rigs on two locations and Frontier and Midwestern on one location, each as well as Addax , which is active on two shallow water locations at the end of November, are known to be the ones performing, currently. Industry sources, though, say two Seadrill-owned drill ships are getting ready for activity in Nigeria’s deep-waters. West Jupiter will likely spud in Egina by Christmas, 2014. West Saturn arrived the country recently and will spud in ExxonMobil operated Erha field in about a week’s time. TOTAL’s ongoing Egina deep-water development is expected to come on stream in 2017. For a project meant to drain some 600 Million barrels of oil over 15 years, the activity scope is enormous.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 01:29:05 +0000
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