Oil production offshore Benin, Nigeria’s neighbor to the west, is set to begin by the end of January, the field operator said on Monday in what would be the first oil from the redeveloped field after it was shut down in 1998.
Akrake Petroleum expects to start production at the Seme Field in Block 1 offshore Benin at the end of January 2026, when it completes the drilling of production well AK-2H in the reservoir section, set to start early this week, Akrake’s indirect owner, Singapore-based Rex International Holding Limited, said on Monday.
While the production well is being drilled, the mobile offshore production unit (MOPU) Stella Energy 1 and the floating storage and offloading unit (FSO) Kristina have already been upgraded and put on location ready for production, the company added.
The Seme filed was first discovered in 1969 and pumped oil between 1982 and 1998, when production was shut down due to very low oil prices and large water volumes in the output.
In August 2025, Akrake Petroleum spudded the first well in the Seme field as part of a 100-day three-well work-program to redevelop the oilfield, which yielded a total of 22 million barrels of oil until it was closed in 1998.
The initial guidance was first oil from the redeveloped field to flow at the end of 2025, but technical difficulties in the drilling postponed the start of the oil production to late January.
West Africa has seen increased attention by international majors, while Benin’s neighbor Nigeria, the top African oil producer and an OPEC member, plans to materially raise its oil and gas production in the coming years.
Last year, BP loaded the first LNG cargo for export from Phase 1 of the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim project further northwest of Benin, a project that straddles Mauritania and Senegal.
In southwest Africa, Angola and Namibia have also drawn exploration interest from Big Oil in recent years.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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