West Africa Exploration and Production Company, an upstream subsidiary of the Dangote Group, is stepping up efforts to unlock more than 1.6 billion barrels of oil across its Nigerian assets, with plans to ramp up production and put gas monetisation infrastructure in place within the next 24 months.
The company’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Olajumoke Cecilia Ajayi, disclosed this at the just-concluded AOW Energy Conference in Accra, Ghana, during a session titled ‘The Future of the African Operator: Building the IOCs of Tomorrow’.
According to a statement issued on Sunday, Ajayi said WAEP’s Oil Mining Leases 71 and 72 previously operated by Shell represent a substantial resource opportunity, holding more than 1.6 billion barrels of oil in place and about 1.9 trillion cubic feet of gas, based on discoveries to date.
She said the company had adopted a phased strategy to revive production from its brownfield assets, generate early cash flow, and reinvest the proceeds into wider field redevelopment.
“The first thing is to look at the low-hanging fruit, the short-term oil gains, generate cash flow from that, put it back into the assets and start redevelopment. And that’s exactly what is happening currently,” Ajayi said.
The WAEP boss said the company had now moved into the execution phase of its development plans, having signed contracts for three jack-up rigs, with drilling expected to begin in December. “We will be drilling to ramp up production and also bring out the value in the asset,” she said.
Ajayi added that the drilling campaign is being supported by six field development plan studies currently underway, which would form the basis for a series of “back-to-back developments” across the OML 71 and OML 72 portfolio.
She noted that WAEP is exploring opportunities to supply its crude to Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals as production increases, given the relationship between the upstream company and the refinery.
“One of the shareholders, one of the partners on this asset, is the owner of the largest refinery in Africa, Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals. So the oil would definitely be needed by the refinery,” she said.
The development could further strengthen the integration of crude oil production and domestic refining, as Nigeria seeks to retain more value from its hydrocarbon resources.
Ajayi also disclosed that WAEP is working towards establishing a dedicated terminal to support crude evacuation as production rises, adding that the proposed facility could potentially serve other producers seeking to aggregate and evacuate crude.
She said the company is strengthening its technical and organisational capacity as it prepares for the next phase of development, stressing that African independent operators must build the expertise and operational capability needed to sustain production from mature assets acquired from international oil companies.
“We need to put round pegs in round holes. We need to put the right skill and competence in the different units,” Ajayi said.
Ajayi said WAEP is targeting sustained production growth and gas monetisation over the next two years. “Between now and the next 24 months, gas monetisation would have been in place. We would have ramped up production consistently,” she said. “Not produce today; tomorrow you are down. Consistent, sustained production.”
