Page 4 - GLNG Week 27 2022
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GLNG                                              AFRICA                                               GLNG


       UTM Offshore aims for FID on




       Yoho FLNG project in Q2-2023




        PROJECTS          JULIUS Rone, the managing director and CEO  heads of terms (HoT) document, he told LNG
                          of Nigeria’s UTM Offshore, has said his company  Prime.
                          is looking to make a final investment decision   “The project preparation facility means that
                          (FID) on a floating LNG (FLNG) project at the  Afreximbank is committing funding on feasibil-
                          Yoho offshore oilfield in the second quarter of  ity studies, such as geotechnical studies and oth-
                          2023.                                ers as a commitment of the bank to the project
                            Rone had said previously that UTM Offshore  prior to FID and financial close,” he commented.
                          hoped to reach the FID stage by the fourth quar-  Under the MoU, the bank is supposed to pro-
                          ter of 2022. On June 29, though, he told LNG  vide $2bn in financing for the first phase of the
                          Prime that the company was now aiming for the  FLNG project, plus another $3bn for the second
                          second quarter of next year.         phase.
                            He did not comment directly on the rea-  UTM Offshore will be installing the FLNG
                          sons for the delay but reported that UTM Off-  vessel for ExxonMobil (US) and state-owned
                          shore had not signed a front-end engineering  Nigerian National Petroleum Co. Ltd (NNPC
                          and design (FEED) contract with Japan’s JGC,  Ltd), the two shareholders in the Yoho oilfield,
                          US-based KBR and South Korea’s Samsung  which lies within the OML 104 licence area.
                          Heavy Industries (SHI) in April as expected. The  ExxonMobil and NNPC began extracting crude
                          parties are still discussing the terms of the deal,  from Yoho in 2003 and have been flaring asso-
                          he said, without revealing whether the additional  ciated gas or re-injecting it into the reservoir to
                          time was related to his company’s recent decision  maximise oil output. Now that the site is mature,
                          to raise the production capacity of the FLNG unit  however, they see the FLNG project as a means of
                          to 1.52mn tonnes per year (tpy), up by 26% on  changing course and commercialising the field’s
                          the original figure.                 gas as oil yields decline.
                            Additionally, he indicated that UTM Off-  As of last year, Yoho was still yielding about
                          shore had been making progress in its talks with  35,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil. ExxonMobil
                          the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank)  and NNPC Ltd have been using a floating pro-
                          on financing for the FLNG project. The parties  duction, storage and off-loading (FPSO) vessel
                          signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU)  to develop the offshore site.™
                          last year and have now moved on to signing a











































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