Nigerian company sues Samsung, Total over Egina deepwater oil project

An indigenous Nigerian engineering firm has taken South Korea's Samsung and Total's Nigerian producing unit to court, challenging its exclusion from awards of local content components for the Egina deepwater oil field in the West African country, court papers showed Thursday.
Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics says that the awarding of contracts for the construction and installation of floating, production, storage and offloading vessel for the field, last year by Samsung and Total, violated Nigeria's 's local content law.

Total HQ

The company said in its court filings that both Total and Samsung had submitted commitments to Nigerian oil regulators that a significant proportion of the steel fabrication and the integration of the FPSO topsides would be carried out at its shipyard on an island offshore Lagos, before Nigeria gave the green light for the Egina project in early 2013.
"[LADOL is seeking] a declaration that the Egina FPSO Project contract was also awarded by Total to Samsung on the basis, inter alia, of Samsung's representations and assurances to the Nigerian regulatory authorities that Samsung would build and operate a training facility in the LADOL Free Zone for the training and education of Nigerians," the court papers said.
 Total and Samsung could not be reached for comment.
This is the second dispute over the $3.8-billion Egina FPSO project, after South Korean ship builder Hyundai Heavy Industries last year protested to the Nigerian government, urging it to cancel the award of the contract to build the FPSO to rival Samsung.
The Egina field, operated by Total, is a $15-billion project expected to reach a peak production 150,000 b/d when it goes on stream.