Fire incident: Jackup rig affected, injuries unclear

 

Rig burns at Chevron field off Nigeria

Two crew members are missing as a fire continued to burn Monday afternoon on a jack-up rig working for Chevron in Nigeria's offshore Funiwa field, the supermajor said.

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  16 January 2012 17:01 GMT

Afren plc’s production levels are ahead of expectations, with the Ebok field in Nigeria contributing to that. The company said in a statement on January 2 that production from the field had reached around 40,000 bpd taking its end-2011 net output to some 55,400 boepd, over 5,000 boepd more than targeted.

Nigerian output at the Ebok field has increased to a stabilized rate of around 40,000 bpd following the commissioning and ramp-up of all production wells associated with the initial phases of the development. This production was added to by the onshore Ogini and Isoko fields, which has almost doubled following technical challenges in early-December.

Afren said that its production levels above its year-end goal of 50,000 boepd were sustained since December 19, as a result of operations in Cote d’Ivoire as well as Ebok and Okoro in Nigeria.

"The group is in a strong position with aggregate net working interest production of 55,400 boepd going into 2012," Osman Shahenshah, chief executive of Afren said.

Afren’s upcoming drilling program in Ghana, Nigeria, the JDZ of Nigeria Sao Tome and Principe, Tanzania, Kenya, and the Kurdistan region of Iraq had the potential "to materially transform and increase our discovered resource base," according to Shahenshah.

DR Congo:

President Joseph Kabila

DR Congo, one of Africa’s largest and most geographically important countries and a top mineral producer is hurdling towards a violent political confrontation between controversially reelected incumbent Joseph Kabila and veteran opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi. Both Kabila and Tshisekedi claim to have won the country’s recent presidential polls, though Kabila’s more legitimate claims are backed up by the UN supervised national electoral commission and were later validated by the country’s Supreme Court. Tshisekedi’s claim that the elections were rigged and did not live up to basic standards is backed up by the US Carter Center and other independent foreign election monitors. While Kabila has so far eschewed a face-to-face confrontation with Tshisekedi, Kabila, is likely to order Tshisekedi to be placed under house arrest by Friday December 23, the day on which Tshisekedi plan to swear himself in as president. Kabila who won 49% of the vote in the country’s recent presidential poll to Tshisekedi’s 32% may also see a potential breakdown of discipline within the under resourced and often mutinous national army. Tshisekedi, who has strong links to some of the senior officers of the dilapidated Congolese army may be pushing a confrontation strategy that could trigger a mutiny or a coup. Kabila’s elite Angolan-trained presidential guards could possibly get into a face-off against the regular army. Eventually foreign diplomats may have to goad Kabila and Tshisekedi into some political accommodation, where Tshisekedi and his top lieutenants are given several high profile government appointments. While a full scale re-ignition of a civil conflict is currently hard to imagine, Tshisekedi challenge may be more potent because of the likely ambivalent position of the UN and other major global powers, in light of the large amount of documented electoral irregularities observed by the independent foreign observers. Over the past 20 years Congo has endured two civil wars, one which almost became Africa’s first international war involving almost a half dozen surrounding states.

Mining Code and license fees to be revised as foreign firms scramble for tantalum, gold and other rare minerals