Sounds like Nigeria has an excellent set up for exporting their oil.

Ship holds 2.2 million barrels...read on.

http://www.reuters.com/article/rbssEnergyNews/idUSL1814782920080122

Babs

By Tom Ashby

LAGOS, Jan 18 (Reuters) - A giant new oil production vessel has arrived at the Agbami field off the coast of Nigeria, but U.S. company Chevron (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research) has imposed a news blackout due to security fears, industry sources said on Tuesday.

The California-based company is afraid that armed groups in the Niger Delta might try to attack the billion dollar ship as it is being hooked up to oilwells on the seabed, causing delays to its mid-year startup.

"It arrived just after Christmas and is now being hooked up," said an industry source who receives reports of the operation, asking not to be named because he is not allowed to talk to the media.

A Chevron source, asking not to be named, said news of the ship's arrival, normally a cause for celebration, was being kept quiet because of fears of militant attack. Company spokesmen in Lagos and London declined to give any information.

"We will be making a statement on the progress of Agbami ... but not just yet," said Michael Barrett, a London-based media adviser to Chevron, in an e-mail.

The South Korea-built ship, known as a floating, production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, is one of the largest of its type in the world.

It can store 2.2 million barrels of oil in its hull and is designed to pump a quarter of a million barrels a day from the Agbami field, one of Africa's biggest discoveries in the past decade with about a billion barrels of reserves.

Agbami is one of four giant deep water oilfields which together will account for a third of production from Nigeria, the world's eighth-largest exporter, by the end of this year.

Armed men in boats have already visited the site, located 70 miles (110 km) offshore, and the company is in dispute with coastal communities over their claim to "host" status for the $3.5 billion project, industry sources say.

Violence against Africa's largest oil industry has risen over the past two years, forcing thousands of foreign workers to leave and disrupting investments.

Chevron has already shut production at the much smaller Pennington oilfield, also off the coast of Bayelsa, for several months because of a series of armed attacks and kidnappings.

Militant groups demanding regional control over the delta's oil wealth have kidnapped hundreds of foreign workers, blown up export facilities, sabotaged pipelines and bombed residential compounds. Oil exports have been about 20 percent below capacity for two years because of a series of rebel attacks in 2006.

Industry sources say two communities on the coast of Bayelsa state want recognition as hosts of Agbami, a status that comes with jobs and cash when oilfields are on land.

But the rules for deep water oilfields are different from land-based ones. Companies are expected to channel their social responsibility payments through a central government agency, Nigerian officials say.