Page 16 - DMEA Week 20 2020
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DMEA FUELS DMEA
NLNG eyes Nigerian domestic market
NIGERIA
The Nigeria LNG (NLNG) consortium has said it hopes to start selling some of its production on the domestic market.
THE Nigeria LNG (NLNG) consortium has said it hopes to start selling some of its production on the domestic market.
To date, NLNG has focused on the export market. But it is now interested in serving cus- tomers in Nigeria, according to Tony Attah, the group’s managing director and CEO. To this end, it is “engaging market players to kick-start [a] domestic LNG scheme,” he said during a virtual business forum organised by the Nigerian Gas Association (NGA).
Attah did not reveal many details of NLNG’s plan. He noted, though, that the consortium already had a foothold in the Nigerian fuel market – specifically, in the market for LPG. Currently, he explained, the group is deliver- ing LPG to 36 Nigerian companies for local distribution.
Finding additional domestic customers will allow NLNG to support the Nigerian govern- ment’s effort to make better use of the country’s natural gas reserves, he added.
Representatives of the consortium indicated last month that NLNG intended to adapt its business strategy in light of recent developments
– namely, the demand destruction and bear markets that have followed the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and the Saudi-Russia oil price war. They told Punch that the pandemic had changed the outlook for all businesses, including LNG suppliers.
“NLNG continues to closely monitor the global impact of COVID-19 and adapt as appro- priate to meet our contractual obligations and achieve resilience,” they were quoted as saying by the newspaper.
The NLNG consortium comprises four shareholders: Nigeria National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), with 49%; Royal Dutch Shell (UK-Netherlands), with 25.6%; Total, with 15%, and Eni, with 10.4%. The group began operat- ing in 1989 and has already built six production trains at its gas liquefaction plant on Bonny Island.
Earlier this year, NLNG made a final invest- ment decision (FID) on the construction of a seventh production train. When complete, Train 7 will raise the facility’s production capacity from its current level of 22.5mn tonnes per year to 30mntpy.
Kenyan fuel trader touts rail and barge route for fuel shipments
KENYA
The head of a Kenyan fuel trading company has talked up the advantages of using Kisumu, a port on Lake Victoria, as a starting point for deliveries of petroleum products to Uganda and Tanzania.
THE head of a Kenyan fuel trading company has talked up the advantages of using Kisumu, a port on Lake Victoria, as a starting point for deliveries of petroleum products to Uganda and Tanzania.
Edward Odero, the director of Tricon Inter- national, noted last week that most Kenyan trad- ers use tanker trucks to ship fuel from Kisumu, one of the endpoints of the Kenya Pipeline Co. (KPC) system, to customers in Tanzania and Uganda. This method contributes to heavy traf- fic on the roads that connect these countries, he said. In turn, the heavy traffic contributes to the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, as it forces drivers to spend hours in close proximity while waiting for clearance to cross the border, he stated. The rate of infection among drivers using this route has been climb- ing, he noted.
Conditions will be safer for traders that opt to use the port’s rail and barge infrastructure to move fuel out of KPC’s Kisumu terminal in tankers, Odero asserted. “There will be limited
contact and interaction between sailors and crew members operating the vessels, as they will remain in the tanker and allow the Ugandan staff to drive locomotives and the products,” he was quoted as saying by The Monitor.
Crew members working in the port will be tested regularly for COVID-19, he added.
According to Odero, traders using the port of Kisumu will be able to use several different ves- sels to ship fuel across Lake Victoria. They can secure access to a tug vessel, MT Harambee, or one of two tank barges, Tanker I and Tanker II, he explained. The tank barges were built locally, at the Kisumu Marine Yard, and are fully certi- fied to carry petroleum products, he said.
He went on to say that Kisumu’s facilities were “now in total readiness and on standby to start operations from [the] KPC Kisumu depot to Uganda.” KPC conducted a dry-run test of this route last year, as well as a wet-run test that involved the transport of petroleum products from Kisumu to the Ugandan port of Jinja, he said.
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