West Africa Exploration and Production Company (WAEP), the upstream arm of Dangote Group, is preparing to accelerate crude oil production from its Nigerian assets, targeting more than 1.6 billion barrels of oil in place while developing infrastructure to monetise associated gas within the next two years.
The company is also considering supplying part of the crude output to Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals, potentially deepening the integration between the group’s upstream operations and its 650,000-barrel-per-day refinery.
WAEP Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Olajumoke Cecilia Ajayi, disclosed the plans at the recently concluded AOW Energy Conference in Accra, Ghana, during a session titled “The Future of the African Operator: Building the IOCs of Tomorrow.”
Ajayi said the company’s OMLs 71 and 72, previously operated by Shell, hold more than 1.6 billion barrels of oil and approximately 1.9 trillion cubic feet of gas, based on discoveries made to date.
Rather than pursuing a full-scale redevelopment immediately, WAEP is adopting a phased approach aimed at bringing the quickest production opportunities online, generating cash flow and using the proceeds to fund broader redevelopment of the fields.
“The first thing is to look at the low-hanging fruit, the short-term oil gains, generate cash flow from that, put it back into the assets and start redevelopment. And that’s exactly what is happening currently,” Ajayi said.
The company has now moved from planning into execution, with contracts signed for three jack-up rigs. Drilling is scheduled to commence in December, according to Ajayi.
“We will be drilling to ramp up production and also bring out the value in the asset,” she said.
The drilling programme is being backed by six field development plan studies currently in progress. The studies are expected to establish the technical and commercial basis for a series of sequential developments across the OML 71 and OML 72 portfolio.
As output increases, WAEP is examining the possibility of directing its crude to the Dangote refinery.
Ajayi pointed to the ownership relationship between the two businesses, noting that one of the partners in the upstream assets also owns the African refinery.
“One of the shareholders, one of the partners on this asset, is the owner of the largest refinery in Africa, Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals. So the oil would definitely be needed by the refinery,” she said.
A successful crude supply arrangement could strengthen the connection between domestic oil production and refining, allowing more Nigerian crude to be processed locally while supporting the broader drive to retain greater value from the country’s petroleum resources.
WAEP is also working on infrastructure to address the logistics of moving higher crude volumes.
Ajayi said the company plans to establish a dedicated crude evacuation terminal as production expands. The facility could potentially be opened to other producers seeking to combine their volumes and evacuate crude, creating additional infrastructure capacity beyond WAEP’s own operations.
The company is simultaneously strengthening its technical and organisational capabilities as it prepares to operate and redevelop mature assets previously managed by international oil companies.
Ajayi said the success of independent African operators would depend not only on acquiring assets but also on having the technical expertise and appropriate personnel to operate them efficiently.
“We need to put round pegs in round holes. We need to put the right skill and competence in the different units,” she said.
Over the next 24 months, WAEP expects the development programme to deliver both higher and more consistent oil production and a functioning gas monetisation system.
“Between now and the next 24 months, gas monetisation would have been in place. We would have ramped up production consistently,” Ajayi said.
She stressed that the objective was sustained output rather than intermittent production.
“Not produce today; tomorrow you are down. Consistent, sustained production,” she said.
The planned drilling, field-development studies, crude evacuation infrastructure and gas projects collectively mark the next phase of WAEP’s strategy for OML 71 and OML 72, with the company seeking to convert the substantial discovered oil and gas resources into sustained production and cash-generating assets.