Anglo-Dutch giant Shell is set to kick-start fully-fledged engineering studies within weeks on its delayed Bonga South West ‘Lite’ project off ­Nigeria, which aims to develop 800 million barrels of recoverable oil.

Two contractor groups, according to sources, are ready to start front-end engineering and design studies on a scaled-down ‘lite’ version of the 225,000-barrel-per-day floating production, storage and offloading vessel originally selected for the deep-water Bonga SW development.