TotalEnergies will start a major drilling campaign late this year on its prolific Egina and Akpo oilfields offshore Nigeria, while development studies continue on its delayed Preowei project.

Located in Oil Mining Licence 130, Egina and Akpo are producing through major subsea production systems tied back to floating production, storage and offloading vessels.

TotalEnergies’ potential 11-well drilling programme was due to begin five months ago but, for various reasons, including rig availability, the start date has now slipped to December, according to Keith Hill, chief executive of Africa Oil, which has a stake in OML 130.