OREANDA-NEWS. Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Ltd (SNEPCo) has announced plans to drill eight more wells in the Bonga field to help maximise deep-water production off the coast of Nigeria. This third phase of the Bonga Main development is expected to add around 40,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day through the existing Bonga floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility.

“This programme - on top of the ongoing Phase 2 drilling and after the start-up of Bonga North-West barely two months ago - further underlines our commitment to Nigeria and leadership in deep-water production,” said Shell's Vice President Nigeria & Gabon, Markus Droll.

Phase 3 is an expansion of the existing Bonga Main development and will involve drilling four oil-producing and four water injection wells. Drilling is expected to start in 2015. Output from the new wells will be transported through existing pipelines to the FPSO facility. The facility has the capacity to produce more than 200,000 barrels of oil and 150 million standard cubic feet of gas a day.

The Phase 3 work will be executed by several contractors including Nigerian companies that have developed deep-water expertise through the provision of similar services for SNEPCo. The Bonga field, which began producing oil and gas in 2005, was Nigeria's first deep-water development in depths of more than 1,000 metres. Bonga has produced over 500 million barrels of oil to date.

The Bonga project is operated by SNEPCo as contractor under a production sharing contract with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, which holds the lease for OML 118, in which the Bonga field is located. SNEPCo holds a 55% contractor interest in OML 118. The other co-venturers are Esso Exploration & Production Nigeria Ltd (20%), Total E&P Nigeria Ltd (12.5%) and Nigerian Agip Exploration Ltd (12.5%).