Nigeria LNG Eyes T7 FID in Q4
Nigeria LNG CEO Tony Attah said its shareholders have resolved to take final investment decision on Train 7 in Q4 2019, following the March 22 signature in Abuja of a $1bn agreement between NLNG and the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board.
The planned date is already late: Attah said at the World Gas Conference in June last year that the company would take FID in 2018, but first it needed to line up buyers for term contracts as the spot market was too risky.
The Nigerian Content Plan (NCP) for the Train 7 project sets out the work scopes to be executed in-country, based on the provisions of the Nigerian Content Act and existing capacities. The document would form the operating guide for project execution and monitoring.
The NCP ensures as much of the project’s value as possible stays within Nigeria by giving first consideration to local goods, services and human resources, as well as economic opportunities to Nigerian companies. The NCP stems from the service agreement both parties signed in May 2017, binding them to timely approvals and compliance with the Nigerian Content Act.
For the Train 7 project, the NCDMB has introduced a provision that would ensure that a lead EPC bidder that has built capacity in-country is not disadvantaged with regards to cost.
The overall scope of work on the T7 project includes in-country and out-of-country work: design, engineering, procurement, expediting, transport, management, construction, installation, pre-commissioning and start-up support and acceptance testing of an expansion to the existing NLNG facility.
In July 2018, NLNG said it was seeking $6.5bn financing to build Train 7, as well as a further $5bn for the expanded upstream gas supply.
State-owned NNPC noted that the NLNG T7 expansion would be accompanied by a debottlenecking of trains 1-6 and estimated its 49% share of the project cost at $4.3bn. NLNG’s other shareholders are the European majors Shell (25.6), Total (15%) and Eni (10.4%)
The Train 7 project is aimed at boosting NLNG's production capacity by 35%, from 22mn metric tons/yr to 30mn mt/yr.