Akpo West field in Nigeria commence production

The Akpo West field in Nigeria has kicked off production. TotalEnergies and its partners made the announcement.

Mike Sangster, Senior Vice President Africa, Exploration and Production at TotalEnergies, expressed satisfaction with the start of production from Akpo West, emphasizing its contribution to maintaining production at the Akpo facilities while aligning with TotalEnergies’ strategy of developing low-cost, low-emission projects. TotalEnergies operates PML2 with a 24% interest, in partnership with CNOOC (45%), Sapetro (15%), Prime 130 (16%), and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd as the concessionaire of the PSC.

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Akpo West field

The field, situated 135 km offshore, is tied back to the existing Akpo Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) facility, which began operations in 2009 and produced 124,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boed) in 2023.

Akpo West is expected to add 14,000 barrels per day (bbl) of condensate production by mid-2024, followed by up to 4 million cubic meters of gas (MMcmg) by 2028. The development of Akpo West utilizes the existing Akpo facilities to minimize costs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with a projected carbon intensity below 5 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per barrel of oil equivalent (kg CO2e/boe).

Nigeria has been ranked the second largest oil and gas producer in Africa (after Angola). Crude oil from the Niger Delta basin comes in two types: light, and comparatively heavy – the lighter has around 36 of API gravity while the heavier has 20–25 of API gravity. Both types are paraffinic and low in sulphur.