Page 6 - GLNG Week 12 2022

GLNG AFRICA GLNG

UTM Offshore hopes to sign FEED contract

for Nigerian FLNG project next month

PROJECTS & JULIUS Rone, the managing director and CEO He went on to say that his company was still
COMPANIES of Nigeria’s UTM Offshore, said on March 23 planning to make a final investment decision
that his company expected to sign a front-end (FID) on the FLNG project in the fourth quarter
engineering and design (FEED) contract for its of 2022. UTM Offshore had made a statement to
floating LNG (FLNG) project at the Yoho off- that effect last December, saying that this dead-
shore oilfield sometime in April. line would allow LNG production to begin in
Speaking to LNG Prime, Rone said that the 2026. They see the
deal would probably be finalised in the first half The total cost of building and deploying the
of the month. “We are planning to sign the con- FLNG vessel has been estimated at $5bn. UTM FLNG project
tract on or before April 15,” he stated. Offshore is set to secure up to $5bn in funding
Rone also reported that the FEED contract for the project under a a deal signed with Cai- as a means
would be carried out by three companies: Japan’s ro-based Afreximbank last December.
JGC, US-based KBR and South Korea’s Samsung The Nigerian company will be installing the of changing
Heavy Industries (SHI). Both JGC and SHI have FLNG vessel for ExxonMobil (US) and state- course and
extensive experience in building FLNG vessels, owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp.
and KBR will carry out an engineering review of (NNPC), the two shareholders in the Yoho oil- commercialising
JGC’s work, he said. field, which lies within the OML 104 licence area.
Rone did not reveal the value of the deal or ExxonMobil and NNPC began extracting crude the field’s gas as
say when the three companies were likely to from Yoho in 2003 and have been flaring asso-
begin executing the FEED contract. He did ciated gas or re-injecting it into the reservoir to oil yields decline.
note, though, that both JGC and KBR had been maximise oil output. Now that the site is mature,
involved in the pre-FEED study for the FLNG however, they see the FLNG project as a means
project, with JGC carrying out preliminary of changing course and commercialising the
design work and KBR carrying out a third-party field’s gas as oil yields decline.
review of that work. As a result of that review, As of last year, Yoho was still yielding about
he said, UTM Offshore decided to raise the pro- 35,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil. ExxonMobil
duction capacity of the FLNG vessel to 1.52mn and NNPC have been using a floating produc-
tonnes per year (tpy), an increase of 26% on the tion, storage and off-loading (FPSO) to develop
original figure. the offshore site.™

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 12 25•March•2022