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AfrOil INVESTMENT AfrOil

“We are fixing our refineries, we don’t have all investors can expect,” he said.
the cash to put there but [what] we are going to
do is to get a partnership with others to put their On gas
money as investors and they’ll get their money NNPC is a partner in Nigeria LNG (NLNG), the
out of the refinery,” Kyari said. international consortium also comprising Italy’s
A final investment decision (FID) on the Eni, France’s Total and Royal Dutch Shell that
first 50,000 bpd train of the condensate refinery exports Nigerian gas in liquid form.
is due to be taken before the end of July, he esti- The group recently awarded a $4bn engi-
mated, with overall construction work taking neering, procurement and construction (EPC)
three years. contract to add a seventh train at Nigeria’s
“The implication of this is that within three Bonny LNG terminal. Together with the debot-
years, this country would be sufficient in the tlenecking of existing trains, the new unit will
supply of finished petroleum products, [and] boost NLNG’s liquefaction capacity to over
after that, we’ll be looking for markets. We 30mn tonnes per year (tpy).
know that we can deliver on this,” he said. In a separate conference, NLNG head Tony
Kyari noted that Nigeria was due to pass a Attah lamented that it had taken 15 years for
new petroleum bill by the end of 2020, pro- Nigeria to commit to developing another train.
viding better conditions for investing in the In this time, he said, Nigeria’s share of the global
country’s oil and gas reserves. Nigerian Presi- LNG market has fallen from 10% to less than
dent Muhammadu Buhari and both legislative 7%. “If you blink, you are left behind,” he said.
chambers want to see this happen, he said. The In the past it has been suggested that Bonny
bill had been expected to become law by the end LNG could host as many as 12 trains. Attah
of July, but the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis called for Nigeria to pick up the pace in devel-
caused delays. oping its gas resources. “The Nigerian story is
The NNPC head added that a licensing not complete without gas,” he said. “Gas is a
round would take place in 2021 to attract more major resource. We don’t want fossil fuels to
upstream investors. “I know for sure that there have disappeared in 50 years’ time and we didn’t
would be a licensing round that will come next use the resources we had when we could.”
year. We are working on our petroleum legis- The CEO said that no delays to the seventh
lation to make sure that before the end of this train’s construction were currently envisaged as
year, we have the petroleum legislation in place a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The train
in such a way that there is visibility around what is due to start production in 2025. ™

PERFORMANCE
Egypt’s monthly hydrocarbon

surplus shrinks by 61% in March

EGYPT EGYPT’S monthly hydrocarbon surplus nar- Meanwhile, consumption of natural gas was
rowed its the lowest level in over a year in March, 6.8% lower year on year at 3,532 toe in March
shrinking by 61% year on year to 260,000 tonnes and that of refined petroleum products fell by
of oil equivalent (toe) on substantial falls in pro- 11% year on year to 2,397 toe.
duction coupled with declines in consumption, However, domestic butane gas production
indicated figures released by the monthly infor- marginally increased, growing by 4.4% year on
mation bulletin prepared by CAPMAS. year to 160.8 toe in March but falling far short
The country’s hydrocarbon imports, which of consumption, which dipped by 1.6% year on
stood at $11.54bn in fiscal year 2018/2019, the year to 336 toe. The gap between production and
last full year for which data is available, were a consumption was filled by imports, which fell
major cause of its trade deficit with the external by 40% year on year from the previous month’s
world, adversely affecting the current account elevated levels to 182 toe in March.
deficit, which registered an $8.19bn gap in the
same year.
Domestic production of hydrocarbons
declined for the third month in a row, easing by
0.6% year on year to 6,189 toe in March under-
pinned by a 19% year-on-year drop in natural
gas output to 3,559 toe, while production of
crude oil, condensates and butane gas decreased
by 4.6% year on year to 2,630 toe.

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 25 24•June•2020