TOTAL ENERGIES' PREOWEI FIELD: REWORKING FOR AN OFFSHORE OIL DEVELOPMENT

Having a brilliant idea is one thing but having the ability, patience and determination to bring that idea to life is an entirely different ball game.

This is the story of the Preowei oil project.

For years, this project has appeared to be lying helplessly somewhere between ambition and frustration.

There was oil. There was money. There was technology. There was even a plan to combine all these ingredients together. But there was still one very important question: Was there enough willpower among all the stakeholders to say, “Gentlemen, ladies… let’s get this thing over the line”?

Preowei is an offshore oil field located in the Niger Delta. The original concept was to produce oil from the Preowei field and connect it to the Egina Floating Production, Storage and Offloading vessel (FPSO). An FPSO is basically a gigantic floating oil-processing facility.

Instead of building a massive oil-processing plant on land, an oil company can position this enormous vessel offshore. Crude oil comes from underwater wells into the vessel, where it is processed and stored before eventually being transferred to another vessel for transportation.

Think of it as a floating kitchen for crude oil.

And who is the celebrity chef behind this particular kitchen arrangement?

TotalEnergies!!!!

After years of waiting, TotalEnergies appears to be returning to the planning table with a potentially different approach called the "Tie-Back"

Tie-Back simply means connecting a smaller/new oil field to an existing production facility instead of building an entirely new facility for it.

With this, nearby oil fields like Chota, Bolia, OBO will be connected into the Preowei arrangement instead of constructing an entirely new production facilities for each of these respective oil fields!!

Thus, instead of looking at Preowei as an isolated project requiring an entirely separate production infrastructure, the thinking now appears to be broader.

TotalEnergies is basically connecting the ingredients to the existing infrastructure, reduce the need for unnecessary new facilities and see whether the entire meal becomes economically more attractive. With this move, our chef, TotalEnergies, suddenly has more ingredients on the table.

You see, life is like the blank pages of a book.

What you eventually write on those pages determines the story people will read.

The Preowei story has already consumed several pages and the beautiful thing is that it has somehow got the readers glued to it's pages

The project has undoubtedly faced several years of waiting, uncertainty and economic questions.

But now, TotalEnergies appears to be trying to change the narrative by looking beyond Preowei itself and considering how several nearby resources and existing infrastructure could potentially work together.

You see, sometimes, the problem is not that the meal is bad. You simply need to change the recipe.

And then in comes the government who have been posing as the umpire and sponsor all along.

For the fact that the potential economic significance would be considerable, the Nigerian government has indicated willingness to support investment in offshore oil development, with discussions around financing running into about $2 billion.

So why is the Nigerian government willing?

Because projects of this scale can potentially generate investment, employment, government revenue and additional oil production.

However, it is very pertinent to note that more oil production does not automatically translate into better roads, hospitals and schools.

Those benefits depend on what happens to the revenue afterwards, how efficiently it is managed, how transparently it is spent and whether the wider economy actually captures the benefits.

In other words: cooking the food is one thing. Making sure everybody gets a plate of the food is another.

Meanwhile, the chef, TotalEnergies, has been checking out the kitchen by carrying out seismic work beneath the seabed.

Seismic surveys help oil companies understand the geology beneath the seabed and improve their understanding of the subsurface structures that could affect development.

It is essentially part of the process of discovering what is really underneath the ocean floor before you start breaking it open.

In oil and gas, optimism without proper technical investigation can become a very expensive form of excitement.

So yes, the aroma may already be reaching the dining room but the chef still has to make sure the food does not burn.

What does all this mean for the ordinary Nigerian?

That is probably the most important question.

If the project and associated developments eventually reach production, Nigeria could gain from increased oil output, investment and government revenues. There could also be opportunities for businesses and workers connected to the wider oil and gas value chain.

But, once again, the benefits are not automatic.

The real question is whether the additional economic activity eventually translates into tangible improvements in people's lives because Nigerians have heard many promises before.

There have been some beautiful recipes. We are now interested in the actual food.

Six years of waiting!

Imagine waiting for admission into university for six whole years!!

One year passes.

“Don't worry. Next year.”

Second year:

“Be patient.”

Third year:

“Your time will come.”

Fourth year:

“God's time is the best.”

Fifth year:

At this point, you have probably started learning any other handiwork

By the sixth year, you may have opened a shop and become the proud owner of a thriving business.

That is how frustrating prolonged waiting can become. Projects can suffer the same fate.

When development takes too long, economics change, priorities change, technology changes and stakeholders begin asking whether the original plan still makes sense. And perhaps that is why the current approach is so interesting.

The question TotalEnergies has seemed to ask and answered is the question of will and work.

Maybe the solution to one difficult oil project is not to keep trying to develop that project alone.

Maybe the smarter question is; what if we bring several nearby discoveries into the same arrangement, connect them to infrastructure that already exists, and create an economic model that makes the entire development more viable?

Now that is a different recipe. And perhaps this time, the chef has finally decided that the secret is not necessarily in cooking one meal harder.

Maybe the secret is in cooking several meals in the same kitchen.

So, should we panic because the Preowei project has taken years?

Not necessarily. After all, great chefs take their time.

Question for the road:

When a major project takes years to materialise, is patience really a virtue or can excessive waiting eventually become part of the problem?