Page 17 - DMEA Week 49

DMEA LNG DMEA

The Nigeria LNG plant
on Bonny Island.

NNPC head: NLNG shareholders

now discussing Train 8

NIGERIA SHAREHOLDERS in the Nigeria LNG (NLNG) instance, Train 7 is adding almost close to what
consortium have begun discussions on the con- the current trains are doing,” he said, according
Nigeria’s government struction of another production train at their to This Day.
has said before that natural gas liquefaction plant on Bonny Island. He was referring to the fact that the Train
NLNG could eventually Mele Kyari, the group managing director of 7 scheme envisions the construction of a new
have as many as 12 Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), production unit that will add 4.2mn tonnes per
trains in operation. made an announcement to this effect earlier this year (tpy) of new capacity to NLNG, as well as
week, during a briefing in Abuja. He told report- the debottlenecking of existing trains, which
ers that NLNG had begun talks at the behest of will contribute another 3.4mn tpy. (The consor-
President Muhammadu Buhari. The president tium reached the FID stage on the project, which
noted that the group had acted quickly to make will boost the Bonny Island plant’s production
a final investment decision (FID) on the Train 7 capacity from 22.5mn tpy to 30mn tpy, earlier
project and then urged it to take similar meas- this year.)
ures to speed up work on the next production Kyari did not reveal any details of the dis-
train. cussions on Train 8, but he did say that NLNG
“As we have done FID on Train 7, we have and its shareholders were committed to sup-
already started speaking to our partners to go porting the Nigerian government’s efforts to
to Train 8. And indeed, [Buhari’s] question was promote the use of gas and to expand LNG
that he was surprised that we are still on Train production. Abuja views LNG initiatives as
7,” Kyari was quoted as saying by This Day. “He sources of “more jobs, more employment,
thought we should be talking about Train 8, and more expansion of the economy,” he remarked.
I agree with him absolutely, because there was “We agree with this and we are also chasing
enormous room for us to improve.” that appropriately.”
The Nigerian government has said before NLNG was formed more than 20 years ago
that NLNG could eventually have as many as 12 and has been producing LNG since 1999. Equity
trains in operation, but the NNPC chief did not in the consortium is split between state-owned
reveal whether that target was still in place. “[It’s NNPC, with 49%; Royal Dutch Shell (UK/Neth-
not the number of trains that is significant. It’s erlands), with 25.6%; Total (France), with 15%,
the volume of production that is important. For and Eni (Italy), with 10.4%. ™

Week 49 10•December•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P17