Exxonmobil, Others Not Leaving Nigeria – Kachikwu

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The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, says that no international oil company is planning to exit Nigeria, contrary to reports in some section of the media.

Kachikwu made this known
while briefing newsmen after facility tour of ExxonMobil Erha Floating
Production Storage and Offloading vessels in Lagos on Sunday.

FPSO
unit is a floating vessel used by the Offshore oil and gas industry for
the production and processing of hydrocarbons for the storage of oil.

Erha
FPSO has a liquid storage capacity of 2.2 million barrel, making it one
of its biggest kind in the world. The Erha field and Erha North
satellite field, was completed in 2006.

The fields are located
approximately 97km offshore Nigeria in water depths ranging from 1,000m
to 1,200m. They were developed with an investment of 3.5 billion
dollars.

He said that it was not possible for a company like
ExxonMobil to sell off its assets for the small amount quoted in the
report as its assets were much more worth than that.

“I have
confirmed that it is not true, there are going to be here for a long
stay, they will be here over the next 50 years, they are looking for
more, they are doing all kinds of things, they just begun the
exploration campaign first time in four years because of the new cash
call policies we put in place.

“ That is not a sign of somebody
who is exiting. But different from not exiting is to be aggressive.
ExxonMobil needs to be more aggressive in terms of development
policies,’’ he said

He added that ExxonMobil need to be more
aggressive with business as Bonga South west was almost on FID, Egina
just kicked off and AGip is struggling to get Zabzaba online.

“ So, I need to see a very robust development ,’’ he advised

Commenting
on the aim of his visit, he said that it was to encourage the company
and see the development programmes as well as share in the challenges
they were experiencing in their operations.

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“First is to draw attention to the very complex and complication of operations of FPSOs when we do production off shore.

“This
is about 100 km from Land, and part of the thing I am doing this month
is visiting some of them. Including Egina that is just recently buoyed
in different location and the one of Agip.

“I am here to look at
what they are doing, to encourage them to continue the fantastic work
they are doing and also discuss with them what their problems are,’’ he
said

According to him, the visit is also to draw attention
nationally and internationally to the few challenges in operations as
complicated as this one.

He urged the company to brace up to the challenges in the sector as oil had recently been found in many African countries.

Earlier,
Mr Richard Laing, ExxonMobil Executive Director, Production commended
the minister for making out time to visit the facility and reiterated
that the company had no plans to exit Nigeria.

“We are happy with
Nigeria, We have our differences, we don’t agree on everything, we are
happy and content. We are delighted over the minister’s visit and we are
happy that he has come back to his spiritual home.

“As the
minister said, the corporation has been here for many years, we intend
to stay, we have ambitious growth programmes to build wealth and grow
business to make more profit, key into the gas commercialisation
project.

“ We fully support what the minister said and we look forward to working with him,’’ he said .

Laing
said that the company was being faced with the challenges of
competition for capital and expertise in running the business.

(NAN)

Source:- Punchng

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