Page 10 - DMEA Week 33 2021

DMEA SUPPLY DMEA
NNPC provides direct purchase data
AFRICA
THE Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) bought 145.9mn barrels of crude oil under the direct sales and direct purchase (DSDP) scheme for refining during the 12 months from March 2020.
In its latest report, the company said that all of the crude was processed and refined at overseas refineries and came in at a total cost of NGN2.4trillion ($5.83bn).
It said that in March 2021, 7.55mn barrels of crude were lifted from its daily allocation for domestic utilisation, “translating to an average volume of 243,650 [barrels per day (bpd)] in terms of performance”.
The full amount was processed under the DSDP scheme.
Having failed to carry out satisfactory turn- around maintenance (TAM) on its four state- owned refineries at Port Harcourt (two), Kaduna and Warri, the state firm has embarked on a multi-billion dollar project to rehabilitate these facilities under a strategy that will see it take a backseat role in the country’s refining sector, outsourcing the maintenance and day-to-day
running of operations.
Following the agreement of a $1bn loan
from Cairo-based African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) in February, NNPC awarded an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the project to Italy’s Maire Tecnimont in April.
NNPC noted that it had utilised the DSDP scheme in order to “ensure sustained product supply across the country” and added that the country would reach gasoline self-sufficiency once the refinery rehabilitation project is com- pleted and the 650,000-bpd Dangote Refinery comes into operation next year.
On August 4, Minister of State for Petro- leum Resources Timipre Sylva said that NNPC had received the green light to acquire a 20% stake in the Dangote Refinery project for a total of $2.76bn, valuing the total project at around $14bn, below the $15-16bn valuation previously touted.
Term sheets were signed by NNPC and Dan- gote Group, with talks understood to be ongoing regarding the financing of the acquisition.™
Plans to make Tema LNG a regional hub
AFRICA
TEMA LNG Terminal Co. (TLTC), the owner of the Tema LNG terminal offshore Ghana, is reportedly working with an affiliated company to establish its facility as a regional gas supply hub.
According to S&P Global Platts, Tema LNG hopes to support small-scale deliveries to other West African countries. It is particularly keen on supplying LNG to Liberia and Sierra Leone, where its affiliate Ecow-Gas, an infrastructure development company based in the Nether- lands, has won the exclusive right to build and operate new LNG regasification and storage facilities in these two countries, Platts reported earlier this week.
As of press time, no information was availa- ble on how much Ecow-Gas might invest in the project or when LNG shipments to Liberia and Sierra Leone might begin. Platts did say, though, that TLTC would support its affiliate by transfer- ring LNG from its storage facilities, which will be able to hold more than 180,000 cubic metres, to tankers for delivery to the other countries. Tema LNG is capable of loading small-scale LNG car- goes in the range of 7,000-30,000 cubic metres economically, so it will be able to support ship- ments to the facilities that Ecow-Gas plans to build, it added.
In turn, it said, these arrangements will trans- form Tema LNG into a regional gas hub, capable
of importing gas for delivery to Ghana’s domestic market and also re-exporting gas to other West African states. This hub will be able to deliver small amounts of LNG to regional markets either by sea or by land, as it can load both tankers and trucks. A source with knowledge of the matter told Platts that co-operation between TLTC and Ecow-Gas would allow West African countries to begin importing LNG without making large capital expenditures or taking out large loans. “Countries can share risk and absorb capacity as demand fluctuates,” he commented.
TLTC is slated to commission Tema LNG in the near future. The terminal will consist of a floating regasification unit (FRU) and a separate floating storage unit (FSU). The FRU is capable of handling 1.7 million tonnes per year (tpy) of LNG, and the FSU will be able to store 145,000- 160,000 cubic metres of gas.
A unit of Royal Dutch Shell (UK/Nether- lands) is slated to use the new terminal to supply LNG from Nigeria to Ghana National Petroleum Corp. (GNPC) under a long-term off-take con- tract. Officials in Accra hope the deal will make larger volumes of gas available on the domestic market, supplementing local production and pipeline imports from Nigeria. However, the project is running behind schedule, as Tema LNG is still waiting to finish construction and take delivery of its first LNG cargo.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 33 19•August•2021