Africa Oil Corp., a Canadian oil and gas company, has renewed its Petroleum Mining Lease 52 (PML 52) for another 20 years, providing a significant increase in its long-term operations in Nigeria.

This renewal, granted by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), ensures continued production of the Agbami oil field, one of Nigeria’s largest deepwater discoveries.

Located approximately 113 kilometers off the coast of the Central Niger Delta, the Agbami field is a prolific producer of high-quality, light crude oil. Its development involves subsea wells attached to a Floating Production Storage and Retrieval (FPSO) vessel.

Africa Oil CEO Roger Tucker expressed his satisfaction with the renewal, saying: “Following last year’s renewals of Prime’s Akpo, Egina and Preowei fields, the renewal of PML 52 strengthens our long-term production outlook from these high-quality production assets”.

“With associated 20-year renewals for each of these areas, our long-term production outlook from these high-quality assets is secure. We thank NUPRC for efficiently processing the application and granting the renewal,” said Tucker.

PML 52 covers 62.46 percent of the Agbami production field, discovered by the Agbami-1 well in 1998.

The oil is light and has an API gravity of 45° to 47°. The field is being developed via subsea wells connected to a dedicated Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel via steel catenary risers.

Production started in June 2008 and the highest gross field production of 250,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) was reached in 2009.

On December 31, 2023, 5 gas injectors and 10 water injectors were drilled for 30 producers. The average oil production rate at the field in 2023 was approximately 98,000 barrels/day. The field’s cumulative oil production until December 31, 2023 was 1.089 million barrels.

The largest share in the PML 52 production sharing agreement belongs to Famfa Oil with 60 percent, followed by Chevron with an operating share of 32 percent and Prime Oil & Gas Coöperatief with 8 percent. Following the completion of the merger, the Canadian player’s 50 percent share in Prime and therefore its share in PML is planned to increase to 100 percent.

Completion of the merger is subject to various customary closing conditions, including competition clearance from the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC), approval from Nasdaq Stockholm, completion of the previously announced downsizing of Africa Oil’s shares in Namibia. Implementation of the merger with the reorganization of the holding structure of Impact Oil & Gas Limited and BTG Pactual Holding.

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Agbami FPSO

The FPSO was built by South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering.

In 2005, Daewoo awarded the engineering design and supply services contract for the upper parts to KBR and the class contract to ABS.

The Agbami FPSO cost $1.2 billion to build and has a total storage capacity of 2.15 million barrels of crude oil.

It initially came to the site in secrecy in late 2007 and is one of the largest installations of this type ever built.

The Agbami development is expected to be valuable for less complex refineries, especially those without vacuum residue conversion.

It has 13 upper modules containing the main process and auxiliary systems. The upper parts of the ship, which weighs approximately 30,000 tons, produce 75 MW of power and provide accommodation for 100 personnel.

The FPSO is anchored in approximately 4,800 ft of water and at least 40 subsea wells are expected to be required to fully exploit the field.

It can handle 250,000 barrels per day, 450 million cubic feet of gas production and 450,000 barrels per day of injected water.

The FPSO is designed to store approximately 2.2 million barrels of oil and is planned to remain in place for more than 20 years.

Agbami is expected to be valuable for less complex refineries, particularly those without vacuum residue conversion, limited hydrotreating/sulfur recovery, and limited cracking capacity.