Twenty companies were active on 41 locations, although there were 46 rigs in the country, some of them on maintenance, and some in between locations, in September 2013.
“The rig count has hovered between 41 and 46 in the last one year”, says Sola Falodun, Vice Chairman of the Nigerian chapter of the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC).
Shell, the country’s largest operator, utilized nine rigs in all, with eight (8) on onshore locations (three in swamp, five on land) and one drilling a deepwater well.
Agip companies in Nigeria, the local subsidiaries of the Italian ENI group, were collectively next to Shell in size of drilling activity, with five rigs deployed on four onshore and one deepwater well.
ExxonMobil was active on four shallow offshore locations with four rigs.
French major TOTAL had four rigs on duty in four locations, wit; three of these locations were in deepwater and one on land.
Addax utilized two rigs in the month, on two offshore locations. Nigerian indigenous companies deployed 14 rigs on 14 locations with Seplat and Conoil each with three rigs, Pan Ocean on one rig, and Energia, Frontier, Midwest, Newcross, NPDC and NDPR each on one location.
