Total Upstream Nigeria Limited has said the Egina deep-water project is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2018 for the initial budget of $16bn.

The Egina field, which was discovered by Total in 2003 within the Oil Mining Licence 130, some 200 kilometres south of Port Harcourt, is being developed by the company in partnership with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, China National Offshore Oil Corporation, South Atlantic Petroleum Limited and Petrobras.

A statement on Thursday said the project would add 200,000 barrels per day to Nigeria’s oil production, describing it as the largest investment project currently ongoing in the country’s oil and gas sector.

Total, the operator of the Egina project, said, “The overall progress of the project stands at 88 per cent and a key milestone was achieved on October 31, 2017 as the Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading unit started its journey to Nigeria.

“Being the first major deep-water development project launched after the enactment of the Nigerian Oil & Gas Industry Content Development Act of 2010, Egina has the highest level of local content of any such project in Nigeria,” the firm added.

According to the statement, Total Upstream Nigeria fully identifies with the government’s aspirations for local content and has been working closely with the Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board and the NNPC to maximise local content in the project.

It said the project had achieved 24 million man-hours worked in Nigeria (77 per cent of total project workload), equivalent to a workforce of 3,000 persons on average over a period of five years, adding that over 560,000 man-hours of human capacity development training was done across Egina contracts.

The statement read in part, “The FPSO unit of Egina, a 330-metre long vessel designed to process oil and gas from the Egina field, will be berthed at the quayside in Nigeria for integration of locally fabricated modules – a first for Nigeria

“Egina has the highest number of the FPSO topside modules (six) to be fully fabricated and integrated in Nigeria. The assembly of the integrated control and safety system of the FPSO was fully performed in Nigeria. Egina includes the fabrication of the largest subsea equipment (manifolds, risers) ever completed in Nigeria, far above what was achieved in previous projects.