Afren’s Ebok FSO Gets New Name at Sail Away Ceremony

The FSO vessel for Afren and its partner Oriental Energy Resources’ Ebok field underwent its naming and sail away ceremony. The vessel, Virini Prem, will now set sail from the Yulian shipyard in China. The Nigerian indigenous company Century Energy Services will be the ship crewing agent in Nigeria.

The Virini Prem is a 267 meter, 174,917 ton vessel which was refurbished at the Yulian shipyard in China. The vessel will store and offload for export, stabilized crude that will be produced and processed at a dedicated Mobile Offshore Production Unit (MOPU) at the field location. The FSO has a storage capacity of 1.2 million barrels and will accommodate regular crude oil offtake by tankers up to VLCC size.

In readiness for the arrival of the FSO, all 12 mooring lines have also been successfully pre-installed at the field location. Additionally, fabrication of all flowlines required to transfer produced crude oil from the MOPU to the FSO has been completed, which will be stowed on the FSO for transport to the field. Development drilling activities remain on schedule at the field, where six horizontal production wells and one water injection well are being drilled and completed in advance of the FSO and MOPU arrival.

Ebok is one of the largest independent developments undertaken in Nigeria to date and Oriental and Afren believe that the field is part of a prolific hydrocarbon area that has substantial further potential. Afren extended its asset base in 2009 and 2010 to include further partnerships with Oriental in the Okwok and OML 115 assets adjacent to Ebok. Appraisal well drilling is shortly due to commence at Okwok and will be followed by an exploration well on OML 115.

Osman Shahenshah, Chief Executive of Afren, commented:

“The Virini Prem FSO Naming and Sail Away Ceremony is a major milestone for the Ebok development, and an important step towards first oil, at what will be a core production hub for the broader Ebok/Okwok/OML 115 area. We are very grateful for the continued support from our partners at Oriental, Mercator, the Government of Nigeria, Department and Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the local Effiat community.”