By Firdaus Jibril
The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Heirs Energies Limited, Engr. Osayande Igiehon, has revealed how the company doubled crude oil production at OML 17 without drilling new wells, describing the achievement as proof that existing assets can deliver significant growth through innovation and operational efficiency.
Speaking at the 2026 Nigeria Annual International Conference and Exhibition (NAICE) in Lagos, Igiehon said Heirs Energies adopted a strategy focused on restoring dormant wells, rehabilitating ageing facilities, and improving operational performance after assuming operatorship of OML 17 in July 2021.
According to him, the company took over the asset when production stood at about 25,000 barrels of oil per day.
“Our acquisition plan showed that we needed to double production,” he said.
Rather than embarking immediately on an extensive drilling programme, Igiehon noted that the company launched a large-scale campaign to reactivate existing wells and optimise facilities already in place.
He stated that only about 40 producing strings were active when Heirs Energies assumed operational control, but the company reactivated approximately 30 additional producing strings within its first 100 days.
“We actually reached 52,000 barrels per day in 100 days,” he said.
The CEO explained that the company chose to maximise the potential of existing assets because it found the approach to be faster and more cost-effective than drilling new wells.
“The popular view is to go and drill new wells. But our view is that if you cannot take care of old things, you will not be able to take care of new things using the same approach,” he said.
Beyond well reactivation, Igiehon said the company refurbished ageing equipment instead of replacing it with new assets.
He disclosed that Heirs Energies currently operates 24 pumps, only two of which are new. The others some over 50 years old have been restored to achieve more than 85 per cent uptime.
He added that the company has carried out more than 200 rigless well interventions as part of efforts to improve production from existing assets.
According to Igiehon, the same approach can support Nigeria’s ambition of increasing crude oil production to three million barrels per day by unlocking production from mature fields at a lower cost.
He concluded that the company’s experience demonstrates that innovation, technical expertise, and efficient management of existing infrastructure can significantly boost production without relying solely on new drilling campaigns.