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AfrOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES AfrOil

Cameroon to build new refinery near Kribi

CAMEROON THE government of Cameroon intends to build hoped to establish a public-private partner-
a new refinery to compensate for the loss of the ship (PPP) for the project but did not name any
country’s only oil-processing plant, which has potential partners.
been out of service for more than a year. The new facility will help make up for the
In its National Development Strategy 2020- suspension of operations at Cameroon’s only
2030 document, the government indicated that existing refinery – the Sonara plant, located in
it had already drawn up plans for the construc- the port of Limbé in the Sud-Ouest region. The
tion of a refinery with a throughput capacity of facility has been idle since May 31, 2019, when it
5mn tonnes per year (tpy), equivalent to 100,000 sustained massive damage in a fire.
barrels per day (bpd). The facility will be built The Sonara refinery benefited from its loca-
near Kribi, a deepwater port in the Sud region, tion in Limbé, which is the main hub of the
it said. country’s oil industry. Cameroonian officials
The document explained that the new refin- hope that the new plant will benefit similarly
ery would be capable of serving domestic and from its proximity to facilities built for an LNG
regional markets. The plant will sell fuel to project. Kribi is in the vicinity of a natural gas
members of the Economic and Monetary Com- production platform and a converted LNG
munity of Central Africa (CEMAC), a regional tanker – the Hilli Episeyo, owned by Bermu-
grouping that includes Central African Repub- da-registered Golar LNG – that is now serving
lic, Chad, Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea as a floating LNG (FLNG) vessel.
and Gabon, as well as Cameroon, it said. The ship may eventually be able to turn out
Cameroon’s government has not said how up to 1.2mn tpy of LNG. It is already being used
much the oil-processing plant might cost to to process limited amounts of natural gas and
build. It said in the strategy document that it gas condensate. ™

Eni: Topsides of FLNG vessel for

Coral South project completed

MOZAMBIQUE ITALY’S Eni said last week that the topsides of in at around 140,000 tonnes.
the floating LNG (FLNG) vessel that will be used When finished, the vessel will be capable
for the Coral South LNG project in Mozam- of turning out 3.4mn tonnes per year (tpy) of
bique had been completed. LNG. It will be towed from South Korea across
In a statement, Eni reported that the last of the Indian Ocean to the Mozambique Channel,
13 topside modules had been installed on the off the coast of Cabo Delgado Province. It will
FLNG at a shipyard owned by Samsung Heavy be installed about 50 km from shore at Area 4,
Industries (SHI) in Geoje, South Korea. The the licence area within the Rovuma Basin that
shipyard lifted the modules, which weigh 70,000 will provide gas for the Coral South LNG pro-
tonnes altogether, onto the vessel one at a time, ject. This will make it the first floating gas lique-
it said. faction plant ever to work in an ultra-deepwater
Now that the vessel’s topsides are finished, zone.
“construction is continuing with integration Eni was the first international oil company
and commissioning activities,” Eni said. It also (IOC) to sign on to a major LNG scheme in
stressed that work on the FLNG was proceeding Mozambique. In 2017, it made an FID in favour
on schedule. of going forward with the $10bn Coral South
“This lifting, which marks the end of the LNG project. It has said it will drill six develop-
onshore-modules fabrication campaign con- ment wells in 2,000-metre-deep water to pro-
figuring the entire gas treatment and liquefac- vide feedstock for the FLNG.
tion plant, is on schedule and in line with the The Italian company’s partners in the project
expected sail-away in 2021 and gas production are Mozambique Rovuma Venture (MRV), a
start-up in 2022,” it explained. joint venture owned by Eni, ExxonMobil (US)
SHI began building the hull and topside and China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC);
modules of the FLNG in September 2019. It Galp (Portugal); KOGAS (South Korea) and
completed the hull in January 2020. The ship is ENH, Mozambique’s national oil company
432 metres long and 66 metres wide and weighs (NOC). ™

P16 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 45 11•November•2020