Page 7 - AfrOil Week 38 2019

AfrOil INVESTMENT AfrOil
Uganda still wants Tullow’s FID
on Lake Albert project by December 31
UGANDA
ROBERT Kasande, the permanent secretary of Uganda’s Ministry of Energy, said last week that Kampala still hoped to see UK-listed Tullow Oil make a final investment decision (FID) on its Lake Albert block in the near future.
Even though Tullow did not succeed in final- ising a deal for the sale of part of its stake in the block to Total (France) and China National Off- shore Oil Corp. (CNOOC), Ugandan authori- ties want the project to succeed, Kasande said. To this end, he said, the FID committee formed by the ministry, along with Tullow and its part- ners, will meet soon to discuss the next steps.
The permanent secretary did not say exactly when the meeting would be held. He did state, though, that Kampala did not want Tullow and its partners to push the date of the FID past the current target of December 31, 2019.
He also declared that the Ugandan govern- ment was not considering any changes to the tax regime governing oil and gas projects. Even though questions about capital gains tax helped scuttle Tullow’s deal with Total and CNOOC, the laws now in force “bring value to the coun- tryandcannotbechanged,”hedeclared.
If Tullow and its partners make the FID on schedule, before the end of 2019, they will be able to start production in Uganda in 2022 or 2023. The companies have said, however, that the collapse of the farm-in deal will probably
force an adjustment in the timeline for the project.
Tullow has been in negotiations with Total for several years. In January 2017, the two com- panies signed a purchase agreement that pro- vided for the French company to pay $900mn for a 21.57% stake in the Lake Albert block, which includes Exploration Areas 1, 1A and 2. Then in February of the same year, CNOOC, which was already a shareholder in the project, exercised its pre-emptive rights and claimed half of the equity stake set aside for Total.
Currently, Tullow has a 33.33% operated stake in the Lake Albert block. Its licence area contains more than 1.5bn barrels of oil in dis- covered recoverable resources. Eventually, it may see production peak at more than 230,000 barrels per day (bpd). ™
Kampala has given Tullow a deadline. (Photo: Tullow Oil)
PERFORMANCE
NNPC says rehab programme will allow refineries to operate at full capacity
NIGERIA
NIGERIAN National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) has announced plans to overhaul and repair all of its oil refineries in less than three years. Mele Kyari, the group managing director of the national oil company (NOC), unveiled plans for the rehabilitation programme on September 22 during a tour of Port Harcourt Refining and Pet- rochemical Co., known as PHRC.
In his remarks, Kyari said the programme would allow NNPC’s four refineries in Kaduna, Port Harcourt and Warri to operate at full capacity for the first time in many years. Col- lectively, the plants have a throughput capacity of 445,000 barrels per day (bpd).
NNPC will begin rehabilitation work in
January 2020 and wrap up the project by the end of 2022, the group managing director said. “We will do everything possible between Octo- ber and December [of 2019] to close out all necessary conditions for us to deliver on that project,” he added.
He also stated that the company was com- mitted to finishing the overhaul and repair of
the refineries on schedule. “We will stick to
[the] time. We will deliver this project by 2022
... I believe that with the support that we have
from the shareholders – [the] government of
this country, the entire staff of this company
and the contractors – I believe it is doable and
we will deliver the project.”. 
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