Cameroon FLNG Starts Production Tests

Cameroon's state-owned oil and gas company SNH has told the newsletter Investir Au Cameroun, December 19 that the floating LNG vessel, Hilli Episeyo, started initial production tests in mid-December 2017.

SNH added that commercial production from the floating LNG (FLNG) unit will begin at the end of 1Q 2018. This represents a delay of up to three months from the scheduled start-up of late December.

Cameroon is the first African country to start up an FLNG unit, but the first in the world was the Petronas FLNG unit offshore Malaysia which produced its first LNG a year ago and exported in April.

“The Floating LNG project ... places the SNH and its partners at the heart of innovation in the international gas industry. Cameroon, the pioneer of this major project, in fact joins the restricted group of natural gas exporting countries”, SNH said.  Hilli Episeyo will produce 1.2mn metric tons/yr of LNG for export, with cargoes contracted under a long-term agreement to Gazprom once commercial production starts.

The FLNG venture will be supplied in natural gas by the Sanaga and Ebome gas fields, located offshore Kribi and operated by French-UK independent Perenco. 

Built at the Keppel shipyard in Singapore, Hilli Episeyo arrived in Cameroonian waters  November 20, 2017.