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The final well, KSR-18, will target two reservoirs Mark Reid, the CEO of SDX, noted that his
– Guebbas, at a depth of 1,600 metres, and Hoot, company was due to drill a total of 11 new wells
at a depth of 1,790 metres. in 2021. Five of these will be sunk in Morocco,
SDX expects that these three wells contain and the rest will be in Egypt, he said.
about 1.8bn cubic feet (50.97mn cubic metres) “The company’s Egyptian drilling activities
of natural gas in P50 reserves. In its statement, it are expected to commence in June with the
noted that the drilling sites were all “near to the first of four development wells in West Gharib
company’s existing infrastructure, thus enabling and the start of our very exciting two-well cam-
tie-ins to be completed quickly and at low cost.” paign in South Disouq, where the second well,
The second phase of the Moroccan pro- the Hanut-1X exploration well planned for [the
gramme is due to begin in September or Octo- middle of the third quarter of 2021], will be
ber, SDX added. This phase will involve the targeting gross unrisked mean recoverable vol-
drilling of two more wells before the end of the umes of 139 bcf (3.936bn cubic metres) with a
year, it said. 33% chance of success,” he commented. ™

Lummus wins contract from

BUA to build PP unit in Nigeria

NIGERIA US-BASED Lummus Technology was this week
awarded a contract to build a 285,000 tonne per
year (tpy) polypropylene (PP) facility in Nige-
ria’s Akwa Ibom State through its Novolen
subsidiary.
In a press statement, Leon de Bruyn, Lum-
mus’ president and CEO, said: “Our world-class
Novolen technology is well suited to meet Nige-
ria’s increasing demand for the growing petro-
chemical products market. It offers a flexible
range of industry-leading products for all PP
applications, and the industry’s lowest overall
capital and operational costs, while providing
customers with high process reliability and flex-
ibility in responding to market needs.”
Meanwhile, BUA group chairman Abdul
Samad Rabiu expressed confidence in Lum- According to documents from Nigeria’s Depart-
mus “to deliver a best-in-class, 285 KTA PP unit ment of Petroleum Resources (DPR), BUA’s
for our refinery project scheduled to come on licence to establish (LTE) is for a 150,000 bpd
stream in 2024.” conversion plant.
While the value of the contract is yet to be In September, Rabiu said: “Once completed,
revealed, it will include basic design engineer- this residual fluid catalytic cracking (RFCC)
ing, training and services, and catalyst supply. based complex will produce high-quality gaso-
The contract was signed with local firm BUA line, diesel [and] jet fuel meeting [Euro 5-qual-
Refinery & Petrochemicals, a subsidiary of food ity] specifications for the Nigerian market and
and infrastructure specialist BUA Group, and the larger region.”
will be built alongside the Nigerian company’s He added that the unit would “produce pro-
planned refinery at Ntaikang in Akwa Ibom pylene, an essential component for the petro-
State. chemical industry used in polypropylene-based
BUA announced that it had chosen France’s plastics and packaging. This large complex
Axens to build the 200,000 barrel per day (bpd) will help in reducing Nigeria’s dependence on
refinery and petrochemical plant in September. imported fuels and petrochemicals.” ™

Week 18 05•May•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P13