‘We want rewards for cost discipline in Nigeria, not handouts’- ExxonMobil Nigeria’s chief

‘We want rewards for cost discipline in Nigeria, not handouts’- ExxonMobil Nigeria’s chief

You recently marked 20 years of production at the Erha deepwater asset. How do you measure what that milestone means?

Twenty years is a meaningful milestone for any deepwater development, but what makes Erha special is that the story isn’t finished. Since first oil on March 27, 2006, we have lifted more than 800 cargoes and produced north of 800 million barrels.

Those are the numbers you can put in a table. What is harder to quantify, but every stakeholder in this industry feels, is what that investment has built in terms of people, careers, institutional knowledge, and infrastructure.

The capacity and capability that came together at Erha have proven themselves over a twenty-year horizon, and we believe there is at least another decade of meaningful contribution ahead. So, we celebrate, yes, but we celebrate forward-looking.

Let us talk about what comes next. You have a drilling campaign anchored at Usan that the market has been watching. What exactly are you committing to there?

What we are working toward at Usan, at OML 138, is an infill development program built on new seismic data we acquired across the entire block a couple of years ago. After more than a decade of production, the seismic has clearly shown where additional resources lie within the existing Usan reservoir. This is not a satellite discovery. It is not a separate field. It is the original Usan reservoir, and these wells have always been part of what that resource contains. What the new data has done is give us the precision to go after it efficiently.

What makes this development compelling is that it leverages infrastructure that already exists. The Usan FPSO is there. It has capacity. And by using it, we avoid the capital burden of a greenfield FPSO, which means the return profile is more attractive for every stakeholder, the investing partners, and the government that shares in production. We have already committed roughly 30 percent of the total program cost through early work, long-lead equipment and foundational contracts. The total investment runs to approximately one billion dollars. We are closing in on the point where we will declare it formally investment-ready.

And in production terms, what uplift does Usan infill represent?

We expect the Usan infill to unlock up to 40,000 barrels per day of additional flowing capacity. When you put that alongside Erha infill, which we estimate at around 20,000 barrels per day, and stack that against our current combined operated production of just over 100,000 barrels, you start to see what the near-term picture looks like. That is approaching a doubling of current operating capacity, before you even factor in what the Owowo field could bring. These are material numbers.

You keep a drilling rig active across multiple campaigns, Usan first, then Erha. Is that an efficiency strategy or a necessity?

Both, frankly. When you mobilise a deepwater drilling rig, the economy only works when that rig is kept busy. The cost-per-well falls when you spread the fixed costs over a longer, continuous campaign. But there is another dimension that people underestimate, which is crew performance. Think of a deepwater drilling crew the way you would think of a Formula One pit crew. The more they drill, on the same rig, with the same technology stack and the same team, the faster and safer they become. That performance improvement is documented globally, and we see it in our own history here.

So, our strategy is to string together a multi-year campaign, Usan infill as the anchor, Erha infill behind it, and keep that momentum alive. The rig schedule already reflects that intent, even before every investment decision has been formally sanctioned.

The asset that everyone is watching is Owowo. You described it as the tip of the spear in your deepwater portfolio. What does that phrase mean to you in practical terms?

Owowo is the first true greenfield development in the sequence we are building toward. Usan infill and Bonga North are tiebacks, with known geology, existing infrastructure, and lower step-out distances. Owowo is categorically different. We are talking about a subsea tie-back of more than 30 kilometers to the Usan FPSO. By comparison, the Erha and Bonga tiebacks that came before it were single-digit kilometers. The well count at full development is 20 to 40 wells. The resource size is at least 50 percent larger than either of the previous tie-back developments. This sits at the outer edge of global industry experience for deepwater subsea engineering. That is why it is the spear tip, not because it is the easiest, but because it pierces the next horizon.

You mentioned $7 to $8 billion as the cost envelope for Owowo. That is a significant capital commitment. What justifies it?

The resource justifies it. At peak production, Owowo can deliver over 100,000 barrels per day. That is transformational for our operated production base and meaningful to the country’s output ambitions. But I want to say something about how we think about capital efficiency, because I think this point often gets lost. We are pursuing a tie-back concept for Owowo, not a new FPSO. That is a deliberate choice. A new FPSO brings more capital expenditure upfront.

Under a production sharing contract, that capital gets recovered by the investors before the government’s full share kicks in. So, higher capex is not neutral; it actually reduces the proportion of barrels available to create broader value for Nigeria. A tie-back, using the existing Usan FPSO, means a lower capital basis. More barrels go to profit-sharing from an earlier point. That is competitive deepwater development. It is not a shortcut. It is the right structure.

Critics would say Owowo has been in development discussion for years. What has taken so long?