Emadeb offshore platform: a subsea template built in six months lets drilling start early

Aquaterra Energy has designed and fabricated a subsea template for Emadeb Energy’s offshore platform in Nigeria within six months, so that drilling can begin before the rest of the conductor-supported structure, now being fabricated at a Nigerian yard, is installed over the wellheads later this year.

Drilling on Emadeb Energy’s new offshore platform in Nigeria can start before the platform itself is finished, after Aquaterra Energy said on 26 October that it had completed the first phase of the project. That phase was a subsea template, designed and fabricated within six months.

The template is installed first so that drilling can proceed while the rest of the conductor-supported structure is fabricated at a yard in Nigeria. The full platform is then installed over the completed wellheads, with both companies targeting later in 2026.

Production from the platform will go to a nearby mobile offshore production unit for processing before export. Aquaterra simplified the topside and adapted elements of its Sea Swift platform designs to shorten engineering, and it puts the whole development at about 15 months from engineering to installation.

“The project marks an important step as we continue to expand our upstream portfolio,” said Adebowale Olujimi, Emadeb’s group chief executive.

Emadeb brought its offshore Ibom field, about 30km from shore, into production in October 2025 through a mobile offshore production unit, and it said at the time that a second phase of two more wells would triple the field’s output by the end of 2026. Discovered in 1979, the field came to Emadeb through Nigeria’s 2020 marginal field bid round.