The first phase of Nigeria's Gbaran-Ubie oil and gas project embarked upon by the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) will gulp 1.56 billion U.S. dollars, project manager Graham Henley said during a media tour of the project site in the weekend.
He said that the company had already spent more than 500 million dollars on the project.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) quoted him as saying that the project, located in Nigeria's southeastern Bayelsa and covering 650 sq km, was 50 percent completed.
When operational, the project, which took off in 2005, will be the SPDC's largest oil and gas scheme, according to the report.
It will be the company's major gas gathering and processing center before transportation to the Bonny Liquefied Natural Gas project site.
Henley said that 90 percent of the design work had been concluded and expressed regret for the delays witnessed in the past one year.
"The project is taking place at a time of security challenges in the Niger Delta and the funding problem that bedeviled the company have both contributed to the slowing down of the pace of work.
"In spite of this delay, we are hopeful that the project will be ready before the end of 2009," Henley said.
He said the project had provided employment for more than 3,500youths in the catchments areas and expressed optimism that the figure would rise to 5,000 before the end of the project.
The Project's Community Relations Manager, Ignatius Okere, said the company had recorded a cordial relationship with the 44 communities involved in the project.
"It has been quite peaceful here, we have never had any shutdown of operations due to community-related problems," he said.
Source:Xinhua
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