TotalEnergies, operator of Oil Mining Lease 58 onshore licence in Nigeria with a 40 per cent interest, together with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (60 per cent), on Thursday, signed a $550m Final Investment Decision for the development of the Ubeta gas field.

Located about 80 km northwest of Port Harcourt in Rivers State, the OML 58 licence contains two fields currently in production, the Obagi oil field and the Ibewa gas and condensate field.

OML 58 gas production is processed in the Obite treatment centre and supplied to both the Nigerian domestic gas market and to the Nigeria Liquefied and Natural Gas plant.

The Ubeta field discovered in 1964 in the eastern part of the Niger Delta will, once on stream, produce about 350MMScf/day of gas and 10,000 BBLS/day of associated liquids, tapping into the vast gas reserves and contributing towards securing gas supply to NLNG Limited.

At the FID signing ceremony held at the NNPC Towers in Abuja on Thursday, the Group Chief Executive Officer, NNPC Limited, Mele Kyari,  said, “We appreciate Mr President for supporting us with the appropriate fiscal environment. The Presidential Executive Order is instrumental to us getting to this significant milestone and we are now seeing the impact of the policy.”

The Senior Vice President of Africa, Exploration & Production, TotalEnergies, Mike Sangster, said, “Ubeta is the latest in a series of projects developed by TotalEnergies in Nigeria, most recently Ikike and Akpo West.

“I am pleased that we can launch this new gas project which has been made possible by the government’s recent incentives for non-associated gas developments. Ubeta fits perfectly with our strategy of developing low-cost and low-emission projects, and will contribute to the Nigerian economy through higher NLNG exports.”