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Nigeria signs off on $3bn methanol project

NIGERIA NIGERIAN national oil company (NOC) On its website, BFPCL says the project com-
NNPC and its partners have taken a final invest- prises upstream development as well as pipelines
ment decision (FID) on the country’s first meth- and a gas processing plant. It will involve two
anol production plant. development phases and aims to produce 1.7mn
The project, with a $3bn price tag, will con- tonnes per year of methanol and 1.3mn tpy of
sume around 14 trillion cubic feet (400bn cubic urea by 2025.
metres) of unexploited gas reserves found at Nigeria wants to expand the role of gas in
oilfields in the Niger Delta Brass area. The plant other areas, including power and heat genera-
itself will be built on Brass Island in Bayelsa State. tion, vehicle transport and household cooking.
Nigeria is on a push to expand development The government declared 2020 the “Year of Gas”,
of its gas resources, estimated at some 5.3 tril- but progress has stumbled because of the corona-
lion cubic metres proven in size. It wants to build virus (COVID-19) pandemic.
out its petrochemicals sector to help achieve this Nigeria cleared one key milestone in July,
goal. though when it broke ground on the 614-km
“Today’s significant milestone of achieving Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline. The pro-
an FID symbolises the full support of the federal ject will carry 36.2 bcm per year of gas, some
government for the construction and operation of which will be used at new domestic thermal
of the first methanol plant in Nigeria,” NNPC power plants (TPPs).
tweeted on January 29. It will attract $3bn in for- Methanol is used to produce many other
eign direct investment (FDI) and create 30,000 chemicals and solvents. Among its main uses is
jobs during its construction and a further 5,000 manufacturing formaldehyde, used in plastics,
during its operation. paints, textiles, pigments and dyes. It is also used
“The project will have significant economic to create acetic acid, methyl tertiary-butyl ether,
and development impact on the country, includ- biodiesel and olefins. Ammonia is mostly used
ing revenue generation and import substitution in fertilisers.
for the methanol needs of the country that is cur- The Brass project will use gas supplied by
rently 100% imported,” he said. Royal Dutch Shell. It will rely on technology
NNPC is partnered in the project with the provided by Denmark’s Haldor Topsoe to make
Nigerian Local Content Management Board the methanol, which will be sold to BP under a
and engineering group DSV Engineering. Their 10-year contract. Ammonia will be marketed
operating joint venture is Brass Fertiliser & Pet- through US trader Trammo.. ™
rochemical Co (BFPCL).

GAS-FIRED GENERATION

TNOG wants to bring OML 17 output

back up to 100,000 bpd

NIGERIAN TNOG Oil & Gas, a Nigerian company estab- OML 17 a high enough priority when allocating
lished by Heirs Holdings and Transnational funds for capital expenditures. He also argued
Corp. of Nigeria (Transcorp), is reportedly that TNOG could resolve this problem by taking
looking to raise output more than three-fold at “very simple” measures such as repairing broken
Oil Mining Lease 17 (OML 17), a licence area in equipment and stepping up drilling campaigns.
which it recently acquired a 45% stake. “To get to 100,000 barrels [per day], you have to
Samuel Nwanze, the CFO of Heirs Hold- bring in the drilling rigs,” he remarked.
ing, told Bloomberg in an interview earlier this He also stated that TNOG intended to use
week that OML 17 was currently yielding less associated gas from OML 17 as feedstock for
than 30,000 barrels per day of crude oil. He three thermal power plants (TPPs) owned by
said TNOG hoped to bring that figure back up Transcorp whenever possible. This will allow
to 100,000 bpd, the level that Shell Petroleum the TPPs, which have a combined generating
Development Co. (SPDC), a Nigeria-based affil- capacity of 2,000 MW, to serve as part of a wider
iate of Royal Dutch Shell (UK-Netherlands), was network of assets, he said. “The whole idea is
once able to sustain. to build that integrated energy system,” he told
Nwanze faulted SPDC for the decline in Bloomberg.
yields, saying that the company had not given TNOG Oil & Gas recently completed the

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 05 04•February•2021