Page 6 - AfrElec Week 46

AfrElec COMMENTARY AfrElec
I can tell you that it becomes a ‘nice-to-have’ but people do not access it.”
Mantashe also said at the conference that Africa’s need for energy was so pressing that it outweighed other considerations. “Energy is the catalyst for growth. They even want to tell us to switch off all the coal-generated power stations. Until you tell them, ‘You know, we can do that, but you’ll breathe fresh air in the darkness.’”
No apologies
Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima, Equatorial Guin- ea’s Minister of Mines, Industry and Energy, spoke even more emphatically, saying that oil and gas represented African countries’ best hopes of creating new jobs and encouraging economic development.
“Under no circumstances are we going to be apologising [for developing fossil fuels] ... [If there is] anybody out of the continent saying we should not develop those fields, that is criminal. It is very unfair,” he asserted.
Gabriel Mboumba, Gabon’s Minister for Hydrocarbons, summed up the issue neatly. He described oil and gas as assets and major con- tributors to development. “We will do all in our power to develop it,” he declared.
“Bright and robust”
Sentiments such as these have also been on display beyond the AOW conference. Roland Ewubare, the chief operating officer of Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), asserted earlier this week that oil and gas would remain important for a long time yet – especially in developing countries.
In a paper presented at the Abu Dhabi Inter- national Petroleum Exhibition Conference (ADIPEC), Ewubare acknowledged the impor- tance of environmental considerations.
“The conversation here was about the tran- sition to a greener future, as it were. Nigeria is a country of over 200mn people, and whatever we do has an impact in Africa and the rest of the world,” he wrote.
Nevertheless, he said, extractive industries are not in imminent danger of dying. “Yes, there will be some regions that will migrate towards renewables. But don’t forget that growth in terms of absolute numbers and economic expansion comes primarily from Asia and Africa. In [the] long term, those areas are not where the use of electric vehicles has gotten close to significant levels,” he said. “So I have no worry about the future of oil. It is bright and robust.”™
THERMAL GENERATON
Second phase of development underway at Libya’s Faregh gas field
LIBYA
LIBYA’S National Oil Corp. (NOC) said last week that one of its subsidiaries, Waha Oil Co. (WOC), had successfully launched the second phase of development work at the Faregh nat- ural gas field.
In a statement, NOC said that WOC had commissioned the project after wrapping up tests of all equipment at the field – namely, gas compressors, gas filtration and drying systems, pipeline systems, surface equipment and remote controls, along with other backup equipment. These tests have shown that the field’s seven wells are capable of turning out 150mn cubic metres per day of gas and 10,000 barrels per day (bpd) of condensate, in line with the company’s expec- tations, it explained.
WOC’s next step will be to conduct a series of laboratory tests to confirm that gas from Faregh meets the relevant specifications, the company said. Once the gas passes these tests, it can be loaded into a 110-km pipeline that will link Far- egh to Intisar, a field also known as 103A that is under the control of Zueitina Oil Co. (ZOC),
and then transferred to a pipeline for transport to the coast.
NOC said earlier this year that it expected Faregh’s production capacity to reach 150 mcm per day in November. Last week, it added that the field was likely to see output rise even higher in the near term. WOC intends to tie its eighth well, known as BB-11, into the existing produc- tion complex after it can replace the valve system at the wellhead and begin purifying the gases extracted there, the statement said. This will push yields up by about 30 mcm per day for gas and 5,000 bpd for condensate, it noted.
Mustafa Sanalla, the chairman of NOC, said that the second phase of the Faregh project would help meet the needs of Libyan businesses and other major domestic consumers. “In addi- tion to increasing gas production capacity in general, the importance of this project lies in supplying power plants to help resolve the elec- tricity shortage, as well as supplying methanol and fertiliser plants in Marsa el-Brega,” he was quoted as saying in the statement.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 46 21•November•2019