Page 13 - AfrOil Week 08 2022

AfrOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES AfrOil

Under that contract, once the caissons are The two companies have said they intend to
installed, Saipem and Eiffage are due to start use a floating production, storage and off-load-
building berthing facilities for the FLNG unit, as ing (FPSO) unit to extract gas from the field.
well as LNG tankers that will offload production This vessel will process the gas to remove heavier
from the vessel. hydrocarbon fractions before sending remain-
GTA is an offshore licence area that straddles ing volumes to the FLNG unit for liquefaction.
the maritime border between Mauritania and To support the LNG component of the pro-
Senegal. It was discovered by US-based Kosmos ject, BP and Kosmos have contracted Bermu-
Energy in 2015 and is believed to hold some 15 da-registered Golar LNG to convert the Gimi
trillion cubic feet (425bn cubic metres) of nat- LNG tanker into an FLNG vessel with a produc-
ural gas. tion capacity of 2.5mn tonnes per year (tpy). As
BP joined the project in 2016, and the two of last November, this FLNG unit was reported
companies made a final investment decision to be 75% technically complete and slated for
(FID) on first-phase production in late 2018. delivery in 2023. ™

GNPC consulting shareholders on

decommissioning of Saltpond oilfield

GHANA STATE-OWNED Ghana National Petroleum the field. The contractor will comply with all
Corp. (GNPC) is moving forward with the pro- International Maritime Organisation (IMO)
cess of consulting shareholders in advance of the rules with respect to waste disposal and man-
upcoming decommissioning of Saltpond, the agement, as well as the installation of navigation
country’s first oilfield. buoys with marine lights at the site, he said.
GhanaWeb reported on February 18 that the Saltpond is a shallow-water oilfield that lies
company was seeking to educate, inform and about 13 km from shore in 24-metre-deep water.
invite feedback from stakeholders in the decom- It was found in 1970 by the Signal-Amoco con-
missioning process. Thus far, it said, GNPC sortium and began production in 1978. The site
has already held consultations with the chief has changed hands several times since its discov-
director of Central Regional Minister Justina ery. ™
Marigold Hassan’s office and Ophelia Mensah
Hayford, the member of the Ghanaian Parlia-
ment who represents Mfantisman, as well as the
chiefs and residents of Cape Coast, Ekumfi and
Mfantisman.
Additionally, GhanaWeb said, GNPC has
met with representatives of various government,
security, community, non-governmental, trade
and media organisations active in the area. It will
also engage with the Ghana Maritime Authority,
the Fisheries Commission and the Environmen-
tal Protection Agency (EPA), it stated.
It further noted that GNPC had engaged
Hans & Co. Oil & Gas Co. Ltd, a fully Ghana-
ian-owned and operated firm, for the decom-
missioning project. Dr. Kwame Baah-Nuakoh,
the NOC’s general manager for sustainability
and stakeholder relations, said that the public
consultations were designed to show that Hans
was a socially responsible and trustworthy entity.
“We believe in the competences of our local
companies, and that is why, after going through
the procurement processes, we settled on Hans
& Co. Oil & Gas Ltd.,” he remarked.
Baah-Nuakoh also explained that Hans had
been tasked with plugging and abandoning the
six wells drilled at Saltpond during development
operations, as well as with the removal and dis-
mantling of the Mr. Louie platform installed at Saltpond lies south-west of Ghana’s capital city Accra (Image: GeoExpro

Week 08 23•February•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P13