Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its Joint Venture partners, Total Upstream Petroleum Nigeria Limited, have awarded a $3.1bn Floating Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel contract for Egina deepwater oil field to Samsung Heavy Industries in Korea.
SHI  emerged  preferred bidder in a highly competitive bid conducted by the National Petroleum Investment Management System (NAPIMS).
The NNPC management awarded the Egina FPSO contract to Samsung after a comprehensive review of the economics, the track records of the bidders and having met all the requirements of NCD including 10,000 tons in-country fabrication of topsides.
Besides, Samsung through it’s capacity building programme had trained many Nigerians over the years while plans were equally in top gear to train many Niger Delta indigenes in Korea under it’s skill acquisition program.
According to sources, Hyundai Heavy Industries bid $3.8bn for the Egina FPSO while Samsung Heavy Industries stuck to $3.1bn for the same facility.
The new FPSO will measure approximately 330m in length, 61m in width and 33.5m in depth, and is expected to have an oil storage capacity of approximately two million barrels.
Besides, the FPSO will equally have topsides modules with a gross dry weight of 34,000tons and it will be delivered on schedule for the production activities by 2014.