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AfrOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT AfrOil

TotalEnergies Nigeria urges Abuja

to invest in gas transport options

NIGERIA A representative of France’s TotalEnergies has TotalEnergies have signed three supply agree-
urged Nigeria’s government to explore multiple ments within the framework of this programme,
options for the transportation of natural gas. she said.
Maryam Shehu, the general manager of She also reported, though, that implement-
administration for deepwater projects at ing these agreements had been difficult. Since
TotalEnergies Nigeria, noted at an industry Nigeria has not yet fully developed its gas value
conference last week that Abuja was investing chain, suppliers have a hard time finding takers
heavily in infrastructure as it moved ahead with for their product, she stated. In turn, she said,
domestic gasification initiatives. She also recom- lack of demand makes upstream operators
mended, though, that the government work to reluctant to invest in gas production.
open up road and rail transport routes, as well These problems can only be resolved if steps
as pipelines. are taken to expand the market for gas, she
In some locations, she said, the best way to argued. This may involve raising awareness
bring gas to consumers is to use trucks instead of gas and gas-derived fuels among potential
of pipelines. This may be especially true, she customers or offering industrial organisations
remarked, for stranded assets – that is, for gas incentives to switch to gas, she said.
fields that are too small to justify the construc- If demand rises, production will also expand,
tion of pipeline branches. In these cases, she she added. “What is quite critical is that the
said, the government should focus on building demand for gas has to increase to be able to
and maintaining roads that are strong enough increase production or to enable the fact that a
to support truck movements. Tanker trucks that lot of investments that have been made in the
are capable of carrying LNG are heavy and can upstream segments of the value chain will be
cause damage to roads that are not reinforced, recouped in time,” she explained. ™
she noted.
She also urged Abuja to expand the scope
of its railway development and rehabilitation
programme to include LNG and CNG cargoes
as well as passengers. Doing so would help to
reduce the amount of stress on the national
road network, she explained. Nigerian railways
“should be optimised in such a way that cargo
rail is considered in the rail network, so that a lot
of pressure can be taken off the road [and] that
these cargo rails can transport the LNG [and]
CNG from one location to the other,” she said.
Shehu further stressed that her company
supported Abuja’s efforts to promote domestic
consumption of gas. To date, subsidiaries of Nigeria will need more than pipelines to deliver natural gas (File Photo)

EACOP, TPDC, Tanzanian government sign

accord on compensation for landowners

TANZANIA THE East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) The agreement was signed last week at an
consortium, which was formed to establish an event attended by EACOP’s managing direc-
oil export corridor connecting western Uganda tor, Martin Tiffen, Tanzanian Energy Minis-
to the Tanzanian coast, has signed its first ter Medard Kalemani, and James Mataragio,
tri-partite land compensation agreement with the managing director of Tanzania Petroleum
residents of areas along the pipeline’s route. Development Corp. (TPDC).

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 28 14•July•2021