Page 15 - AfrOil Week 14 2022

AfrOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES AfrOil

The pre-commissioning of the plant’s produc-
tion units and export facilities began in Decem-
ber 2021. The plant has been under construction
since 2013 and had originally been due to come
into operation several years ago.
Nigeria’s government took a 20% equity stake
in the plant through the national oil company
(NOC) in August 2021. Under this deal, Nige-
rian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) is slated
to provide the Dangote refinery with 300,000
bpd of crude oil, equivalent to more than 46% of
the feedstock it needs to operate at full capacity. Refinery construction site (Photo: Dangote Group)
When finished, the Dangote refinery will be
capable of turning out enough petroleum prod- The refinery is integrated with a $2.5bn
ucts to cover all of Nigeria’s domestic demand. fertiliser plant, the second phase of which was
The country is currently a net importer of fuel, launched by Nigerian President Muhammadu
despite its position as Africa’s largest crude oil Buhari in late March. ™
producer.

Sylva urges NLNG shareholders to let

other producers supply gas to its plant

NIGERIA NIGERIA’S Minister of State for Petroleum partners are running out of gas, and they are
Resources, Timipre Sylva, has asked sharehold- refusing third [parties the opportunity] to sup-
ers in Nigeria LNG (NLNG) to let other natural ply gas to the trains ... This is a very critical issue
gas producers access their pipeline networks so that I want to discuss with the respective part-
that additional feedstock can be delivered to the ners to see how we can resolve this problem so
consortium’s gas liquefaction plant on Bonny that we can increase the production capacity of
Island. the NLNG [plant],” De Leo said, according to a
Speaking during a meeting with Stefano De report from Blueprint.
Leo, the new Italian ambassador to Abuja, on The problem stems partly from disagree-
April 4, Sylva noted that the NLNG plant was ments over the payment structure for gas deliv-
currently operating at only around 70% of its eries to NLNG, Sylva noted. “The partners are
installed capacity because it was not receiving insisting that they can only allow third [parties
enough gas. to] supply gas to the plant only if they agree to
If the NLNG group’s shareholders were to supply at subsidised rates,” he commented.
open up their pipelines to other producers, he “These people, of course, want to make money
said, the facility would have enough feedstock and they cannot supply at subsidised rates, and
to meet all of its obligations on the domestic and that’s why the NLNG trains cannot produce at
export markets. [full] capacity. The partners can afford to supply
“The issue we have with the existing NLNG at subsidised rates because they are partners in
trains is that of insufficient gas supply. The the NLNG project, not the third parties.”

NLNG currently has six production trains that can turn out 22mn tpy of LNG (Photo: NLNG)

Week 14 06•April•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P15