Page 13 - AfrOil Week 44 2022

AfrOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES AfrOil

This is partly because of the maturation of some difficulties on this front in recent years and
large onshore deposits but also because of the indicated that Shell was approaching a turning
challenges involved in securing assets in south- point. “In the end, we have to concede that this is
ern Nigeria. Ben van Beurden, the outgoing beyond what we can do,” he remarked.
CEO of Shell (UK), has explicitly linked his Shell has, however, retained its stakes in
company’s decision to shed its onshore Nigerian deepwater Nigerian projects such as Bonga.
portfolio with the ongoing struggle to contain For its part, Nigeria has discussed linking
sabotage, oil spills and theft at its onshore pipe- its own deepwater fields to the offshore zones
lines and installations in the region. of neighbouring countries such as Equatorial
In May 2022, for example, he noted that the Guinea in order to facilitate natural gas process-
company had been experiencing increasing ing and LNG exports. ™

Eni, ExxonMobil confirm that Coral Sul FLNG

is turning out LNG offshore Mozambique

MOZAMBIQUE TWO members of the Coral South LNG con- known as Area 4 offshore Mozambique in the
sortium have confirmed that the Coral Sul float- Rovuma basin.
ing LNG (FLNG) vessel is processing natural gas The other shareholders in the project are
from the Coral field offshore Mozambique and Mozambique Rovuma Venture (MRV), a joint
is also on track to load its first export cargo soon. venture owned by Eni, ExxonMobil (US) and
A representative of Eni (Italy), the operator of China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC);
the group, told Energy Voice on October 28 that Galp (Portugal); KOGAS (South Korea) and
LNG production was already underway. ENH, the national oil company (NOC) of
The Coral Sul FLNG is handling output from Mozambique.
the Coral field, which has been under develop- The Italian major discovered the Coral field
ment since June of this year, and “first cargo is at Area 4 in 2012 and made an FID in favour of
expected shortly,” the representative said. going forward with the $10bn Coral South LNG
He was speaking on the same day that Guido project in 2017. The FID calls for using the Coral
Brusco, Eni’s COO for natural resources, con- Sul FLNG to liquefy 450bn cubic metres of gas
firmed that the FLNG was operational. “As you from Coral.
know, we have produced the first LNG in Coral The FLNG vessel has a single production
and we are completing the ramp-up to achieve train and is currently anchored in 2,000-metre-
the first cargo that is forthcoming,” Brusco told deep water. It has a production capacity of 3.4mn
analysts during a conference call on his compa- tonnes per year (tpy) and is the first floating gas
ny’s third-quarter results. liquefaction plant ever to be deployed at a deep-
Meanwhile, ExxonMobil (US), a non-operat- water field off the coast of Africa. ™
ing member of the consortium, reported that the
Coral Sul FLNG had started turning out LNG
earlier in October. These volumes will help boost
the volume of gas delivered to world markets,
representing “new supply amid growing global
demand,” the US super-major commented on
October 28.
Neither company said exactly when Coral
South LNG was expected to finish loading and
dispatch its first export cargo. Nor did the parties
comment on recent reports that the shipment
had been delayed once again because of techni-
cal problems affecting the FLNG.
According to previous reports, the British
Sponsor, a tanker operated by BP (UK), arrived
at the Coral field around mid-October with the
expectation of loading the first LNG cargo soon.
(BP has signed an agreement that makes it the
sole off-taker of LNG from the Coral Sul FLNG
vessel on an FOB basis for a period of 20 years.)
Eni is the operator of Coral South LNG,
which has a licence for a section of a block The Coral Sul FLNG has started regular commercial operations (Photo: Eni)

Week 44 03•November•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P13