NLNG Ships 4000th Cargo, Talks of Expansion
Nigeria LNG (NLNG) said May 1 it had shipped its 4000th cargo of LNG from its Bonny Island Terminal in Rivers State.
The shipment is headed for the Marmara LNG import terminal in northwest Turkey, which also received NLNG's 3000th cargo in January 2014.
The 4000th cargo, aboard one of NLNG's vessels LNG Sokoto, is for Turkish state-owned importer Botas and, according to NLNG, is estimated to arrive at its destination by May 14, 2017. Its position on the afternoon May 3 was some 300km west of Freetown, Liberia, according to tanker tracking services.
Nigeria LNG chief executive Tony Attah said: "I am excited about this milestone which would not have been possible without the shared vision within our Company of helping to build a better Nigeria."
NLNG has grown to become Africa's largest single private sector industrial investment, safely and reliably supplying about 7% of the world's LNG, said the venture's head of external relations Kudo Eresia-Eke, noting that NLNG exported its first cargo on October 9, 1999 to France's Montoir terminal.
Nigeria LNG complex at Bonny Island (Photo credit: NLNG)
The company continues to highlight plans to expand its LNG production capacity, already the fourth such largest complex in the world, from 22mn metric tons per year (at six liquefaction trains) to 30mn mt/yr by adding two new trains, but gives no timeline. NLNG says that adding two trains would stimulate Nigeria's upstream and attract about $15bn of foreign direct investments into its E&P sector alone, plus a further $10bn constructing the two trains.
Of its planned two new export trains (T7 & T8) however, NLNG's head of media Tony Okonedo said: "Significant back-end preparatory work is continuing in support of achievement of a final investment decision (FID) but we cannot yet put a date to the FID at this time."
NLNG's shareholders -- state NNPC, Shell, Total or Eni -- have not indicated any readiness to invest near-term in such an expansion, especially at a time of global LNG oversupply. Eni's priority is to take a final investment decision on its Coral floating LNG (FLNG) project, offshore Mozambique, and its slowness in doing so indicates that financing new LNG is not easy. Shell meanwhile has its mammoth, multi-billion dollar Prelude FLNG project offshore Australia to complete this year.
For most majors in Nigeria, maintaining gas production for the domestic market is already enough of a struggle. Chevron cited civil unrest as a factor for lower year on year 1Q Nigerian oil and gas production, although Total recently said the situation there was improving.
Shell, the largest non-state shareholder in NLNG, reports its 1Q results on May 4.
Omono Okonkwo