By Mark Pippah
The Managing Director of Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited, Mr. Nicolas Terraz, has disclosed that the company has made over 10 billion dollars investments in the country in the last five years.
Mr. Terraz made this disclosure on Thursday at the 34th Nigeria Association of Petroleum Explorationists Annual Conference Management Session-1, with the theme: “Upstream Business Environment in a Recession Economy – Nigerian Example” in Lagos.
He stated that the company had added over 2.3 billion barrels of crude to Nigeria’s production from 1966 to 2015. “In the last five years alone, we have made approximately 10 billion dollars of investments in Nigeria.
“Through decades of executing development projects, Total’s activities have contributed to creating jobs and developing human capacity in Nigeria.
“Despite the challenging operating environment, Total remains strongly committed to the developments of its activities in the country, while working relentlessly to adapt to the current environment.
“In September 2015, we achieved first oil from the Ofon Phase 2 Development Project, which will increase production capacity from the Ofon field by 60,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
“Development drilling is currently on-going to reach the production plateau. Beyond the incremental production, this project also eliminated routine flaring in Ofon field and allowed monetization of the gas from Ofon.
“This was recognised by the World Bank – sponsored Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership, which gave an Excellence Award to our Ofon-2 Project on 9th September 2015, for this achievement,” he said.
While noting that the impact of low oil price is not peculiar to Nigeria alone, Mr. Terraz said the country is mostly affected because a large part of its revenue comes from the hydrocarbon sector.
The Total CEO further stated that apart from low oil price, Nigeria had also experienced a reduction in production volumes due to security issues, especially hostilities and destruction of oil facilities by militants in the Niger Delta region.
“The current context is challenging for both the country and the industry.
“The government is facing revenue shortages and Oil and gas companies, on their part, have to adapt to the present realities.”
“This context, combined with funding challenges for the joint ventures, has resulted in the deferral of investments and a significant reduction in development drilling.
“This situation has also resulted in the loss of activity and jobs for contractors providing services to the industry,” he concluded.