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Sopuruchi Onwuka
Definition of the vessel involved in the fire explosion at the Ukpokiti field, offshore Western Niger Delta has become the subject of confusion between the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) and Sheba Exploration and Production Limited (SEPCOL).
SEPCOL operates the shallow water Ukpokiti field using a floating production, storage and offtake (FPSO) vessel; and all oilfield operations in Nigeria are supervised and regulated by NURC.
Whereas SEPCOL confirmed reports of fire explosion on its major production facility at the Ukpokiti field on Wednesday morning, NURC stated that the incident involved an evacuation vessel operating in the field.
However, separate statements from the operating company and the regulator showed that efforts were ongoing to identify the cause of the fire, and also to account for personnel on the vessel.
Spokesman of NURC, Mr Paul Osu, stated in a media release that the “explosion leading to a major fire on an evacuation vessel at ukpokiti field (OML 108) in Delta State was reported by our operations team on Wednesday 2nd February 2022.
He added that the NURC “in line with its statutory regulatory oversight of Upstream Petroleum operations in the Nigerian oil and gas industry has commenced investigations into the incident in conjunction with relevant stakeholders and will provide updates appropriately.”
According to him, “there has been no report of any casualties or fatalities and the Commission will take necessary measures to ensure that all safety and environmental measures in line with global best practices to safeguard lives and the environment are put in place.”
The statement from NURC did not attempt to offer any explanation on the fate of crew members on the vessel.
In an earlier statement, the Chief Executive Officer of Shebah Exploration and Production Company Limited, Mr Ikemefuna Okafor, had confirmed that fire had “engulfed our offshore facility, the FPSO Trinity Spirit located at the Ukpokiti Teminal, following an explosion during the early hours of Wednesday, 2nd of February 2022.”
He said efforts were ongoing with necessary parties to contain the situation, determine the cause of the explosion and account for “ten crew men on board the vessel prior to the incident.”
The information from the two statements showed a little gap in coordination in handling the incident.
The Oracle Today reports that an evacuation vessel is not necessarily a production vessel. Evacuation vessel is used for production offtake in a production facility that has no export pipeline. It could also be an incident response vessel used in personnel evacuation during an operating emergency.
On the other hand, an FPSO vessel does not sail. It is a moored vessel equipped with topside production and processing modules. It stores its output in beneath the deck and handles loading of evacuation vessels.
By industry definition, an evacuation vessel could also be a sailing tanker used for offtake from an FPSO.
