Communities kick against move to replace operator of OML 30

There are ongoing protests at oil mining lease (OML) 30, Nigeria’s second largest onshore oil and gas asset, located 35km east of Warri, Delta state.

Central to the unrest is the move to replace Salvic Petroleum Resources Limited, operator of the facility.

In the last one year, SALVIC had been acting as third-party operator of OML30 on behalf of Heritage Energy Operational Services Ltd (HEOSL).

But the host communities are unhappy with the move to replace SALVIC with foreign operators.

OML 30, covering 1,095sqkm, comprising 11 fields, 9 flow stations, the Ughelli tank farm (UPS), the Trans Forcados Pipeline (TFP), and with reserves estimated at about 1 billion barrels of oil, OML30 is a critical source of oil revenues for the federal government, Delta and 110 host communities.

The communities point to SALVIC’s commendable performance OML30, taking production from zero to 75,000 barrels per day (bpd), rehabilitating the Forcados Pipeline in record time and sustaining an uptime of over 86 percent in the 12 months of operations between March 2017 to April 2018.

The company was given steep production targets with a penalty of $25million if the targets were missed.

Considering the 15 months prior to March 2017 foregoing conditions of Zero production in OML30 and the TFP down throughout, it was a daunting challenge for any operator, let alone a young new company in a complex business arrangement.

“Undoubtedly, the SALVIC and OML30 success story is one of defying all the odds. By their achievements in OML30, the SALVIC Team has gained a name as Turn-Around experts in handling and extracting value from challenging and complex assets,” an industry expert said.

“SALVIC met and exceeded targets that were near impossible and demonstrated that excellence does not come from the age of a company but from the resilience of innovative, intelligent people who are empowered and focused on results.”

Some top officials of Salvic-OML30 project are Ikemefuna Okafor, CEO, Salvic; Ebenezer Ajayi, ED, Operations, Theophilus Ekiyor-Katimi, asset Manager; Gabriel Oramasionwu CEO, Abbeycourt; Celine Loader Director, corporate affairs (incl. Government & Community Relations); Fufeyin Funkakpo, manager, government and community relations; Uchechi Nwankwo –GM, HSSE; Okey Ekeocha, manager, security; Maxwell Okoh, MD, Eraskorp.  - Cable Nigeria