Page 6 - GLNG Week 04 2021

GLNG AFRICA GLNG

Egypt poised to ramp up LNG exports

in coming weeks: oil minister

PERFORMANCE EGYPT is preparing to expand its LNG exports pandemic. Its next shipment was not until July,
in the coming weeks, to exploit a recent rebound followed by another three-month hiatus until
in prices and its increasingly abundant supply, October.
its oil minister, Tarek el-Molla, said on January According to Vortexa data, the Idku plant
27. only dispatched 19 cargoes in 2020, versus 54 a
Cargoes have been booked for delivery from year earlier.
the Idku export terminal until the end of March, The 5mn tpy Damietta facility has been idle
while the Damietta terminal is due to restart by since 2012, when it was closed down because
the end of February, el-Molla explained. Egypt lacked the gas supply to keep it running.
“In 2020, the prices were very stressed, very The situation is now very different, following a
low, and we were not able to export, except a few surge in Egyptian offshore gas production over
cargoes throughout the year,” the ministry said. the last few years.
“Starting from October 2020 until now, we have Italy’s Eni reached deals with Spain’s Naturgy
already booked all our volumes to be exported and its Egyptian partners in December that have
from the Idku plant. We have already [booked] paved the way for the plant’s restart by settling
cargoes to the end of March.” a long-running legal dispute over its earlier clo-
The 7.2mn tonne per year (tpy) Royal Dutch sure. Under those agreements, Naturgy left the
Shell-operated Idku plant halted exports in late project and its share was divided up between
March, in response to the collapse in global LNG Eni, Egyptian Natural Gas Holding and Egyptian
prices triggered by the coronavirus (COVID-19) General Petroleum Corp.™

Total CEO, Mozambican president

discuss security for LNG project

PROJECTS & FILIPE Nyusi, the President of Mozambique,
COMPANIES met with Patrick Pouyanné, the chairman and
CEO of France’s Total last week to discuss secu-
rity conditions in the northern Cabo Delgado
province. Total is building a gas liquefaction
plant on Cabo Delgado’s Afungi Peninsula
within the framework of the Mozambique LNG
project.
According to Nyusi’s press service, the
two men agreed that the Mozambique LNG
construction site needed stronger security
arrangements. They also backed calls for the
development and introduction of security strat-
egies that would not disrupt the implementation
of the project, which encompasses the extrac- though, that Defence Minister Jaime Neto, Inte-
tion of natural gas from Total’s offshore acreage, rior Minister Amade Miquidade and Mineral
known as Area 1, and the processing of that gas Resources and Energy Minister Max Tonela
into LNG at an onshore complex. accompanied Nyusi to the meeting.
As of press time, it was not clear whether Total and its partners in the Mozambique
Nyusi and Pouyanné had mentioned any spe- LNG project have faced difficulties in recent
cific changes that might be made at Mozam- months, as an Islamist group known as Ahlu
bique LNG. The presidential press service noted, Sunnah wa-Jamo (ASWJ) has stepped up efforts

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 04 29•January•2021