Dangote Group is looking to start production at its two Nigerian oil assets in the fourth quarter of 2024, after enduring months of crude supply woes, a report by S&P Global Commodity Insights has said.
The report quoting company sources said Dangote is currently seeking a floating production, storage and offloading vessel with a capacity of 650,000 barrels of crude.
The company holds an 85% stake in West African E&P Venture, which in turn has a 45% working interest in the two blocks, alongside the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company’s 55%.
Alhaji Aliko Dangote with the Prime Minister of Grenada Mr Mitchell Dickson during Dickson’s visit to the Dangote Refinery in Lagos
The other stakeholder in West African E&P is Nigerian upstream player First E&P, which operates OMLs 71 and 72.
The licenses are located in the shallow water in the southeast of the troubled Niger Delta, just 22 km from the onshore Bonny terminal. They contain the Kalaekule and Koronama oilfields.
Discoveries were first made on the blocks in 1966, and Shell began production there two decades later. Output peaked at 21,000 b/d in 1999, before declining in 2003.
However, according to data from Commodity Insights, the fields still hold recoverable resources of almost 300 million barrels of oil and as much as 2.3 Tcf of natural gas.
Commodity Insights forecasts that production at the blocks could start in 2026, reaching 43,000 boe/d by 2036.