Sopuruchi Onwuka
Indigenous upstream petroleum company, Heirs Energies, has stressed the need for the Nigeria to accelerate oil production and also enlarge domestic capacity for utilization of the commodity in propelling economic and social development.
Managing Director, Mr Osa Igiehon, told newsmen weekend that the country urgently needs to valorize its vast petroleum resources by boosting output within the within available market windows ahead of possible demand migration to low carbon energy.
Mr Igiehon who holds the background of working in Shell operated petroleum exploration and production ventures in Nigeria expressed the belief that the new focus of Nigerian petroleum industry activities must be on enhanced production of oil and gas to meet the nation’s immediate foreign exchange income and drive domestic industrialization with low cost energy.
Heirs Energies hosted a media parley with senior energy and business editors where the company unveiled its operating strategies that focus on boosting production growth, driving low cost operations, forging workable and convincing collaboration with host communities, reviving and optimizing brownfield operating assets, and pursuing opportunities into wider African oil provinces.
Oracle Intelligence reports that Heirs Energies operates exploration and production joint venture on Oil Mining Lease (OML) 17 license area with the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited. The field, it was disclosed weekend, holds significant 1.5 billion barrels (1.5Bbbls) of stock oil in place (STOIP), with another 1.1Bbbls in exploration upside.
The assets which are situated in the urban heart of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, host clusters of facilities that include non-associated gas (NAG) and Associated Gas (AG) plants, flow stations and associated gas gathering (AGG) facilities; some of which are as old as Shell operations in the country.
Assets in the OML 17 operating area, according to Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer (CFO), Mr Sam Nwanze, were commissioned in 1965. He added that Heirs Energies has upon acquisition of the oil block revamped aged facilities and ramped up prpduction from below 40,000 barrels per day to about 100,000 barrels per day.
The production milestones, according to Mr Nwanze, leveraged frank and effective community investments and collaborations, contractor capacity development investments, harnessing industry expertise by pooling experienced executives from international oil companies.
In pointing at the company’s impact on the economy and the goals of its aspirations, Mr Nwanze stated that Heirs Energies reduced production losses on the assets from 97 percent at the point of acquisition to near zero at the moment. He added that output recovery has thus improved from paltry 3.0 percent to almost 100 percent; enabling the company to sustainably supply cheap fuel to manufacturing and power generation entities with natural gas from its operations.
With prevailing upbeat trends in the regulatory and policy environment, he noted, Heirs Energies which had started operations at the oil block with some wells that were shut for over 37 years has been able to increase wells in the block from 40 to over 80.
By building a track record of achieving big ambition, Mr Igiehon stated, Heirs Energies is poised and positioned to drive growth across the full industry loop, and also pursues the aspirations of being the industry’s brownfield champion across Nigeria and Africa.
