Possible delivery date has emerged for the Oilserv Group’s multi-billion naira Obiafu-Obrikom-Oben (OB3) ‘Lot A’ gas pipeline for the largest Gas Treatment Plant (GTP) in Nigeria and by extension Africa.
Chairman and chief executive officer of the group, Chief Emeka Okwuosa, who spoke to journalists on the sidelines of the just concluded Offshore Technology Conference (OTC), in Houston, USA said September 2019 is sacrosanct for the project delivery.
The scheme is coming with a massive capacity two billion standard cubic feet of gas per day (2bscf/d).
According to him, the scheme would have come up earlier than September this year but for some technical reviews in the entire design concept and few other unforeseen restructuring.
According to him, “Yes in the 70s, 80s and even 90s, the likes of Wilbros, Mark Demon and others who are not indigenous built pipelines but what we are delivering today cannot be equated with what we are delivering today in Nigeria”.
“Let us also put it in perceptive that, it is not about the pipeline. We have the GTP at OBEN which is the heart of our scope. The GTP will handle two billion SCF of gas per day. This has never existed anywhere in Africa.
Continuing, Okwusa argued that “You have to be there and see the massive nature of it. When you talk about building OB3, is not just building a pipeline. Our own section would take the gas from mid-point all the way to Oben plant including the Oben plant itself”.
“We finished our own pipeline three years ago, but the treatment plant took a long time because the location was changed from Oben North to the GTP location and that took us two years to go through the re-engineering process, getting the approval and finance.
“At the moment, the pipeline and the GTP facilities are going through pre-commissioning,” Oilserv boss averred, revealing further that “We have a pipeline going to GTP- OBEN. It is a 36 line we built from OBEN to Escravos- Lagos Pipelines System (ELPS) which is OBEN North, which is a bi-directional pipeline that can take gas from GTP in OBEN into Escravos- Lagos Pipelines System (ELPS) or take from ELPS into GTP”.
