The Bonga North West deep-water development has won prestigious awards in the United States and Qatar. It was named Engineering Project of the Year 2015 at the Platts Global Energy Awards in New York, and it also picked up the silver prize for the Project Integration Excellence Award of the International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC) in Doha, on December 6. The project, which Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) and its partners brought on stream in August 2014, is an important milestone for Nigeria’s deep-water industry and has generated jobs and businesses.

“We are pleased that the achievements at Bonga North West have been accorded global recognition,” said SNEPCo Managing Director Bayo Ojulari. “Bonga North West is a testimony to an effective approach to project delivery with focus on safety, cost and an efficient contracting process.”

Bonga North West ties into the existing Bonga vessel, one of the largest floating production, storage and offloading vessels in the world. The project team safely drilled and connected new wells in a highly-challenging environment more than a kilometre below the ocean’s surface. Through close collaboration – including with co-venturers, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and industry regulators – the project has unlocked new energy resources to help meet the world’s growing demand.

In some of the highlights on Nigerian content development, 90% of the people who worked on the Bonga North West project during its four-year development were Nigerian. SNEPCo awarded the major engineering and construction contracts for the project to companies that were either indigenous, have local staff, or possess domesticated capabilities in the country. And a number of new production manifolds, subsea umbilical systems, oil production and water injection flowlines and subsea tree systems were installed on the seabed around 1,000 metres below the surface.

SNEPCo operates Bonga North West in partnership with Esso Exploration & Production Nigeria (Deepwater) Limited, Total E&P Nigeria Limited and Nigerian Agip Exploration Limited under a Production Sharing Contract with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

•Photo shows Bonga vessel.