Page 10 - AfrOil Week 02 2020
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PROJECTS & COMPANIES
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EQUATORIAL GUINEA
GABRIEL Mbaga Obiang Lima, Equatorial Guinea’s Minister of Mines and Hydrocarbons, said at the weekend that his country intended to launch a number of new oil and gas initiatives this year.
Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a conference in Abu Dhabi, the minister stated that Equatorial Guinea was preparing to sign agreements and memoranda of understand- ing (MoUs) on the construction of two new oil refineries with a combined throughput capacity of 40,000 barrels per day (bpd), he said. The gov- ernment hopes to finalise these documents in April so that the contractors can start building the plants before the end of this year, he stated.
Also in April, he reported, the Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons hopes to unveil plans for its next bidding round. “In April we are prob- ably going to announce new blocks that will be put for licensing,” he said.
The ministry intends to negotiate directly with the winners of the upcoming auctions, Obiang Lima added. He also said that four of five blocks would be included in the bidding round but did not identify any candidate sites.
ExxonMobil’s plans
Meanwhile, he said, Equatoguinean authorities will make an announcement in June on their plans for Zafiro, an offshore field that the US super-major ExxonMobil is looking to exit. He indicated that Malabo hoped to transfer the pro- ject to another investor, saying: “For the devel- opment of Zafiro, we are talking to companies from Russia, the UK and Equatorial Guinea itself.”
The field is currently producing at the rate of around 90,000 bpd, he noted. The ministry believes that a new investor can push output rates up even higher, since there are signs that the southern section of the licence area contains as much oil as the original discovery.
ExxonMobil has confirmed that it intends to divest most of its assets in Equatorial Guinea
within the framework of a wider effort to trim
its worldwide portfolio by around $25bn and
focus on large-scale projects. A spokesman
for the company told Dow Jones Newswires at
the weekend that ExxonMobil was “providing information to third parties that may have an interest in these assets, but no agreements have beenreachedandnobuyerhasbeenidentified.”
The company is now waiting for the modules to be delivered to Nigeria.
“When installed, the upgraded refining complex will bring the total refining capacity to 11,000 bpd,” it said. “It will then have the requisite units to produce diesel [at the rate of] 512,775 litres per day; kerosene, 317,205 litres per day; marine diesel, 281,907 litres per day; and heavy fuel oil, 234,525 litres per day; and particularly Premium Motor Spirit (or petrol), 168,540 litres per day.”
Eventually, NPDR’s modular refinery will be able to turn out enough motor fuel to cover about 4.2% of Nigeria’s demand for diesel and around 0.4% for petrol.
The project could also help the West African state bring more investors on board.
“This laudable project is expected to cat- alyse further growth of the Nigerian refining industry by attracting more investments as more players gain confidence,” the department commented.
Equatorial Guinea gearing up for new oil and gas projects
Both companies are expected to start exploration drilling (Image: Tullow Oil)
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w w w. N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 02 15•January•2020
