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DMEA teRminals & shiPPinG DMEA
Nigeria LNG seeking $10bn in financing for Train 7 expansion scheme
afRiCa
TONY Attah, the CeO of Nigeria LNg (NLNg), said last week that the consortium intended to finance a $10bn expansion project through a combination of debt and equity.
According to Attah, the group has already begun talks with commercial lenders in a bid to secure $2bn worth of loans, enough to cover 20% of projected costs. To this end, it is holding discussions with some of Nigeria’s 10 biggest banks, including Zenith Bank and guaranty Trust Bank, he told Bloomberg in an interview.
With respect to the remaining $8bn, he said, NLNg will seek financing from foreign banks and from export credit agencies. “We have done the financial market pitch to know who has capacity,” he commented.
The consortium has appointed guaranty Bank and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking of Japan to serve as its advisor for the fund-raising process, he added. NLNg is seeking financing to cover the $7bn cost of building Train 7, a new gas liquefaction unit that will boost its production capacity by 40%, and the $3bn cost of producing and transporting the gas that will serve as the facility’s feedstock.
Attah went to say that the consortium still expected to make a final investment decision (FID) on the Train 7 project by October 31. In the meantime, he said, NLNg is wrapping up a
sales campaign for the fuel coming out of Trains 1, 2 and 3, and anticipates signing bilateral deals with current and new clients before the end of October.
He also noted that the group had already signed sale and purchase agreements (SPAs) with a number of existing and new clients for future LNg production from Train 7. Bangla- desh, Jamaica, Jordan and Pakistan are likely to be among the biggest buyers of LNg from the new production facility, he said.
Train 7 will be part of the Bonny Island gas liquefaction plant. The facility is currently capa- ble of turning out 22mn tonnes per year of LNg. Once Train 7 comes on stream, its production will rise by 8mn tpy to 30mn tpy.
Nigeria LNg has four shareholders: Nigeria National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), with 49%; royal Dutch Shell (UK-Netherlands, 25.6%), Total (France, 15%) and eni (10.4%). earlier this month, the group appointed SCD – a con- sortium formed by Saipem (Italy), Daewoo engineering & Construction Co. (South Korea) and Chiyoda (Japan) – to serve as its contractor for engineering, procurement and construction (ePC) work on Train 7. Once this milestone is reached, SCD will be able to start work and wrap up construction of the new production train in four to five years.
sUPPly
Egypt’s hydrocarbon surplus continues to surge
egypt’s monthly hydrocarbon balance posted the eleventh consecutive months of surpluses in July, boosted by surging domestic natural gas production from offshore fields coming on-stream eliminating the need for imports of natural gas for domestic consumption, indicated figures released in the monthly information bulletin prepared by CAPMAS.
egypt’s hydrocarbon imports, which stood at $12.4bn in FY2017/2018, are a major cause of its trade deficit with the external world, adversely affecting the current account deficit, which posted a $5.96bn gap in the fiscal year 2017/2018.
neWs in bRief
The swing in the overall hydrocarbon balance from a 63,000 tons of oil equivalent (toe) deficit in July 2018 to a 492,000 toe surplus in July 2019 was a reflection of a remarkable y/y rise in domestic natural
gas output. The rapid growth in domestic production of natural gas by 13% y/y to 4.371mn toe kept it well above monthly consumption levels, which dipped by 4% y/y to 4.126mn toe.
Meanwhile, domestic consumption of refined petroleum products grew by 1.5% y/y to 2.494mn toe, whereas production of crude oil, condensates and butane gas shrank by 2.7% y/y to 2.741mn toe in July 2019.
Moreover, domestic butane gas production contracted by 4.9% y/y to 148,800 toe in July 2019, while consumption fell by 6.4% y/y to 266,000 toe in the same month, resulting in a 118,000 toe butane gas deficit to be filled by
imports, which also fell to 126,000 toe in July 2019 from 176,000 toe in the same month the previous year.
RefininG
Iraq eyes Indian
investments in energy
sector, refineries
Iraq is looking to a proposed visit by petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmenda Pradhan next month to discuss investments in energy exploration and refineries and increased oil sales to India, Iraqi ambassador Falah Abdulhasan Abdulsada said
Week 38 26•September•2019
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