| FEDERAL Government has disclosed that investment in Nigeria's deep offshore oil sector will hit $5billion (about N715billion) by 2005, rising from $2 billion (about N286billion) in 2001. It is also expected that crude oil production from Offshore West Africa (OWA) will increase to 6.2million barrels per day by 2006. OWA countries include, Nigeria Angola, Cameroun and Equatorial Guinea. President Olusegun Obasanjo made the disclosure in a keynote address presented at the opening ceremony of the offshore West Africa (OWA) conference and exhibition, which commenced in Abuja yesterday. The president who was represented by the presidential adviser on petroleum, Dr. Edmund Daukoru disclosed that government was totally committed to providing an enabling environment for investment to flourish in Nigeria's deep offshore. "In the Nigerian sector of the deep water, fields such as Bonga, Erha, Agbami, Akpo and Abo are already on initial production or will shortly be so, and are expected to boost our national production capacity to around 4.1million barrels per day by 2010," he said. He disclosed that ambitious projects are in the offing with the full backing of the administration to capitalize on existing gas opportunities as well as the new deepwater discoveries. They are the Nwa-Doro Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG), Brass LNG and the Nigeria LNG trains 5 and 6, the Escravos gas to liquid (GTL) project and the West Africa Gas Pipeline," he pointed out. On the shift in date for first gas from WAGP, he disclosed that because it involves other countries, not all of them are in the same financial situation. |