BW Offshore has signed a short-term interim extension agreement for the floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit Abo with Eni subsidiary, Nigerian Agip Exploration, Offshore Engineer informed.

The FPSO unit, moored off Nigeria on the Abo field, will continue working for Eni until late January 2017, during which time negotiations continue over a further extension. According to BW Offshore, the short term extension has been agreed to secure operational continuity while joint work is continuing to conclude the negotiations, SubSea World News reported.

In December 2015, BW Offshore signed a letter of intent for a two-year extension for Abo FPSO with Eni, taking the unit’s contract out to the forth quarter of 2016, with options for additional seven years , until the end of 2023. The unit has a storage capacity of 900,000 barrels of oil and oil treatment capacity of up to 45,000b/d, a water injection capacity of 30,000b/d and a gas injection capacity of 35mcf/d.

The Abo field is Nigeria’s first deep-water oil field in water depths ranging from 500 to 800 meters. Development of the field consisted of several subsea wells connected to the Abo FPSO. The Abo FPSO started operations on the Abo field in April 2003.