Page 11 - AfrOil Week 15 2020

AfrOil INVESTMENT AfrOil
 The scale of the project makes the latest delay unsurprising, as ExxonMobil is looking to cut spending this year. The facility would have the capacity to produce 15.2mn tonnes per year (tpy) of LNG and has been estimated to cost $27-33bn to build.
ExxonMobil noted that the Coral floating LNG (FLNG) development – which will use feedstock gas from Area 4 offshore Mozambique along with Rovuma LNG – was continuing as planned. The Coral Sul FLNG facility will have a capacity of about 3.4mn tpy of LNG, supplied by
six subsea wells, and is already under construc- tion, with start-up planned for 2022.
The other partners in Area 4 are Italy’s Eni, China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC), Mozambique’s ENH, Korea Gas (KOGAS) and Portugal’s Galp.
ExxonMobil farmed into Area 4 in Decem- ber 2017, and is due to lead the construction and operation of all future liquefaction and related facilities, while Eni will continue to lead the Coral FLNG project and all upstream opera- tions. ™
POLICY
Nigeria to close loss-making refineries
NIGERIA
NIGERIA has opted to shut down its loss-mak- ing oil refineries while it searches for financing to upgrade them, Nigeria National Petroleum Co. (NNPC) head Mele Kyari said in a television interview on April 8.
Once their modernisation is complete, the national oil company (NOC) also intends to transfer operational control of the facility to private hands, he said.
The three decade-old refineries have only operated sporadically in recent years, as much of their equipment is outdated and in some cases inoperable. Nigeria has struggled for years to secure the financing necessary to upgrade them, so far without success.
“Today, after proper scoping, which was not done in the past, we know exactly what to do to get them back on stream,” Kyari explained.
Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil exporter, is look- ing to cut $5bn from its budget from the oil price collapse over the past month. The country relies heavily on revenues from NNPC, which has slashed its prices to maintain its market share as Saudi Arabia has sought to flood the market.
NNPC will need to cut operational and cap- ital spending to free up cash for the national budget. Its downstream operations have been a considerable drain on its finances in recent years.
Kyari said the company had secured financ- ing for the modernisation programme, without divulging details. The company has claimed this several times in the past, only for the announced deals to fall through.
NNPC is now pursuing “a different model” for the refineries, Kyari said, including the type used by Nigeria LNG, which is operated by an international consortium. He said the company would no longer operate the plants after they had been upgraded.
“We are going to get an O&M [operations and maintenance] contract. NNPC won’t run it,” he said. “We are going to get a firm that will guarantee that this plant would run for some time.”
The Port Harcourt refinery began operating in 1965 (Photo: NNPC)
PUMA Energy Tanzania donates fuel
NIGERIA
PUMA Energy Tanzania has arranged to donate more than TZS100mn ($43,481) worth of motor fuel to the national government in order to support efforts to contain the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The company marked the donation last week in a ceremony attended by Prime Minis- ter Kassim Majaliwa, Health Minister Ummy
Mwalimu and Deputy Health Minister Faus- tine Ndugulile. At the event, PUMA’s managing director, Dominic Dhanah, gave 100 pre-paid fuel cards to the prime minister, saying they could be used at PUMA filling stations by the drivers of ambulances and other official vehicles transporting doctors and medicines around the country.
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