By Yemie Adeoye

SHELL Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and Nestoil Group have commissioned a permanent offshore field logistics base  (FLB)  known as the Outstation Permanent  Block Wall Accommodation project at Nembe Creek 1.

The project was designed  to provide decent and comfortable field logistics accommodation and other facilities for SPDC’s field staff so as  to ensure that personnel working in the field live comfortably.

The project is expected to cater for the accommodation and recreational needs of Shell staff working in the Nembe field from where more than 600,000 barrels of crude are evacuated daily to the  Bonny export terminal.

Commendable to SPDC is the fact that the commissioning of the permanent Field Logistics base brings to an end the era of temporary structures that leaves with the completion of  exploration activities.  It is also expected that the base will facilitate development activities around and in the Community with its reinforcing progress in other areas expected to engender better relationship with SPDC.

The FLB project awarded to Nestoil Plc comprised of a total of 13 buildings made up of six living accommodation buildings, workshop, recreation, IT building and sick bay among others. Part of the scope was also the design, procurement and installation of a sewage treatment plant with associated sewage lift pumps for the central handling of sewage treatment in the facility built. Other facilities that are part of this welfare complex include Shoreline protection works, Floating jetty construction and Citadel perimeter fencing of the complex.

The living accommodation buildings handed over to SPDC were designed for eight serviced bedrooms. Each bedroom is fully equipped with state-of-the-art furniture, contemporary electrical fittings & lighting, modern telecom equipment, fire detection gadgets and UPS facility. The entire Base is powered from a 2000A ATG Main Switchboard located within a concrete structure Low Voltage Switch Building , while the IT/Data hub is in the Telecoms building, from where all data and voice signals are disseminated to other buildings within the Field Logistics Base.

The President of Nestoil Group, Sir Ernest Azudialu  disclosed in a speech delivered during the commissioning ceremony that the base was  provided  with a 150-capital biological process Sewage Treatment Plant, fed from three duplex Mono-muncher surface sewage pumps.

He noted that the entire liquid waste generated within the Base is collected through an underground pipe system and finally treated at the plant, where the solid constituent of the waste is separated as sludge, while the treated clean water is discharged to the environment.

He said: “the Base which is secured by a perimeter citadel fencing network, has been designed to have a well articulated reinforced concrete storm drainage structure, which collects runoff water from building roofs, roads and hard-paved surfaces and discharges to the nearby river to avoid runoff-induced erosion.”

The project also involved the installation of shoreline protection works, made up of gabion mattress system reinforced with natural occurring granite rock boulder to ensure adequate protection of the shoreline perimeter.

Tracing the history of the project, Sir Azudialu disclosed that  the  journey commenced with the bidding process of the project in November, 2002.  He recalled  that Nestoil’s   operations were based in Warri, with just a liaison office in Port Harcourt at the time the company  tendered for the Nembe FLB Project,

He added: “The prospect of the award of the FLB Project ignited our zeal and determination to acquire a Water-front Yard in Port Harcourt .

However, we were still in the process of acquiring the Yard when the contract for the Project was awarded in 2004. This mobilized for the Project from a rented space in TECON jetty at Trans-Amadi with our newly acquired and only marine craft then (Isselle-nma barge and Chibueze tug boat). Subsequent barge movement of construction materials and personnel were undertaken from the same TECON jetty using our OGGE and NAZOR crew boats, before our jetty at Woji became ready.”

However, he noted that the FLB Project was  the company’s first baptism into the Swamp business. “Though Nestoil has since come of age with the commissioning of other swamp, land and seasonal swamp Projects for SPDC including the KCTL, NCTL Projects to mention but a few”, he assured.

“Nestoil identified with the aspiration and therefore left nothing to chance to achieve this comfort.  That is why we are proud to be associated with the success of the Nembe FLB Project considering its significance and contributions to crude-oil evacuation from Nembe, one of SPDC’s strategic fields”, he said.

The above descriptions are just but a few of multi-disciplinary areas of the project, which involved virtually all the key fields of engineering that made the EPIC Development of Outstation Permanent Accommodation Project a peculiar one.

“What Nestoil is handing over today, is a state-of-the-art Facility with facilities equivalent to a five-star hotel”, Sir Azudialu noted.

He called on  users to put in place a good maintenance programme to ensure the facility remains the same.  He also thanked the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and SPDC for the opportunity to show-case Nestoil’s niche for quality in project delivery.

The CEO of Nestoil Group  reiterated  the company’s commitment towards the completion of other phases of the project.