November 12, (THEWILL) – Stakeholders and industry experts have commended the recent NNPC/Aiteo Joint Venture Nembe Crude Oil Grade describing it as a huge milestone in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
Engr. Okwudili Akobundu who runs a private oil and gas services firm in Port Harcourt said the development has opened another window of advancement for Nigeria.
“It has opened a new window of advancement for the country, in the areas of oil and gas. It is commendable that an indigenous firm, Aiteo, is driving the project. The gains are huge,” Akobundu told THEWILL.
An oil and gas analyst, Ayodele Tokede, said the feat was achieved at the most opportune time:
“This is coming at the most opportune time when the country is in dire need of money and the notorious act of oil theft is being contained.”
Engr Amayebo Cookey commended Aiteo for its courage and zero tolerance for lack of professionalism.
He said, “Aiteo has pass through very challenging times. It has suffered a lot of sabotage and man-made industry obstacles. I am happy their determination has paid off.”
OML 29, an asset located onshore Nigeria, is operated by Aiteo Eastern Exploration & Production Ltd, Africa’s leading indigenous hydrocarbon producer, following a historic acquisition from Shell in 2014.
The Nembe Crude was previously blended with the popular Bonny Light grade and exported via the Bonny Oil & Gas Terminal.
The unique selling point of the Nembe Crude Oil grade with an API gravity was highlighted by both the Aiteo E & P and NNPC Limited Leadership at the Argus Conference in London.
The Nembe Crude Oil grade also has a low sulphur content and low carbon footprint due to flare gas elimination, fitting perfectly into the required spec of major buyers in Europe.
Two cargoes of 950,000 barrels each of the Nembe Crude Oil grade have since been exported to France and the Netherlands. With its attractive Assay of API 29 and low sulphur content, the Nembe Crude Oil grade commands a premium to the global Brent benchmark.
With the NNPC-Aiteo OML 29 JV back onstream, Nigeria now boasts of an additional crude oil export of 2 Cargoes at 950,000 barrels each per month and 1.2 Bcf of export gas monthly.
This remarkable achievement signals the commencement of activities at Nigeria’s newest crude oil terminal, the Nembe Crude Oil Export Terminal (NCOET), which was licensed in line with the extant laws and Crude Oil Terminal establishment regulations.
The terminal was conceived as a Floating Storage and Offloading Vessel (FSO) with a storage capacity of two (2) Million Barrels and the ability to offload crude oil to any export tanker from AFRAMAX to Very Large Crude Carriers (VLCC).
It has a loading capacity of 25,000 barrels per hour and will be exporting over 3.6 million barrels of Crude oil monthly at full scale of operation.
Currently, hydrocarbon production from OML 29, which was hitherto constrained due to evacuation challenges owing to the security issues around the Nembe Creek Trunk Line (NCTL) corridor, has now been debottlenecked through a collaborative and creative approach that led to the innovation of the Alternative Crude Oil Evacuation Solution.
The Argus European Crude Conference 2023 in London is a gathering of energy majors, refiners, NOCs, traders, financial institutions, and other representatives from across the global oil markets.
The event also provides a critical opportunity for business leaders to connect, discuss, share and learn from one another.
