Page 13 - DMEA Week 19 2021

DMEA PIPELINES DMEA

Kenya aims to wrap up land acquisition

for Lamu pipeline by year-end

AFRICA KENYA’S government is gearing up to begin When finished, the link will be part of the
acquiring land for the Lokichar-Lamu Crude Oil Lamu Port-South Sudan Ethiopia Transport
Pipeline (LLCOP) project and hopes to complete Corridor (LAPSSET) system. LAPSSET is a
the process by the end of this year. planned transport and telecommunications
According to John Munyes, the cabinet sec- corridor that also includes roadways, a rail line,
retary of the Ministry for Petroleum and Min- a petroleum product pipeline, a fibre-optic cable
ing, Nairobi already has a plan and a schedule offering internet service and other facilities.
for the acquisition of a 500-metre-wide corridor Maina Kiondo, the director general of the
of land along the planned route of the pipeline. project, said last month that plans for LLCOP
“The pipeline will pass through Lamu, Meru, were already “advanced.” He was quoted as say-
Isiolo, Garissa, Samburu and Turkana counties. ing by The EastAfrican newspaper as saying
We hope to finalise this process by the end of the that LAPSSET’s team had already completed a
year,” he was quoted by Agence Ecofin as saying geotechnical study of the right-of-way along the
on May 10. proposed pipeline route. Additionally, he said,
Land acquisition is one of the necessary the project has “undergone a major transfor-
prerequisites to building the pipeline, Munyes mation from completion of initial preliminary
added. Kenyan authorities will also have to allo- studies to completion of front-end engineering
cate budget funds for the project and seek out- and design [FEED].”
side investment before giving the green light for Kiondo also noted that work on new port
construction work to begin, he commented. facilities at Lamu were already more than 85%
LLCOP is slated to follow an 892-km route complete.
from Blocks 10BB and 13T, two oil-bearing The port is due to launch its first berth and
licence areas in the South Lokichar basin, to the container facility in about three months and will
Indian Ocean port of Lamu. The cost of building begin regular commercial operations in Octo-
the conduit, which will have an initial through- ber of this year, after the roads linking it to major
put capacity of 60,000-80,000 barrels per day regional hubs are finished, he said, according to
(bpd), is expected to reach $1.5bn. The EastAfrican.™

MEDGAZ commissions

pipeline link to Europe

AFRICA THE majority Algerian-owned MEDGAZ pipe- The pipeline project was realised by Alge-
line linking North African production fields to ria’s indigenous construction firms Enterprise
European consumers via Spain has commis- Nationale de Canalisations and Cosider.
sioned a second onshore natural gas pipeline, The first phase of the onshore and offshore
thus completing the development phase of the MEDGAZ pipeline was commissioned in 2009
project. joining two other lines linking Algeria with
The new natural gas pipeline with a 48-inch southern Europe, the 12 bcm per year Pedro
(1,219-mm) diameter extends 197 km between Duran Farell line via Morocco to Spain and the
the Kasdir departure terminal and Beni-Saf 33.5 bcm per year Trans-Mediterranean pipeline
arrival terminal on the Mediterranean coast flowing gas via Tunisia to Italy and Slovenia.
and services domestic consumers along its route Algeria is a key natural gas source country
before the surplus gets exported to Europe. for Europe, with the country’s annually exports
The additional supply of natural gas will standing at 42.5 bcm per year in 2019.
increase MEDGAZ’s export capacity from 8.2bn Oil and gas export are a critical revenue
cubic metres per year to 10.2 bcm per year with stream for the country, accounting for over 97%
the help of a fourth turbo-compressor being of Algeria’s total exports and roughly 35% of
added to the Beni-Saf compression station. GDP.™

Week 19 13•May•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P13