Page 9 - DMEA Week 49

DMEA PiPeLines DMEA
New Russia gas sanctions will have little impact, says Lavrov
Middle eaSt
THE US introduced new sanctions against Rus- sia’s Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream (aka TurkStream) pipelines, which were included into the new US military budget, but they will not stop those projects, Russian Foreign Minis- ter Sergey Lavrov told reporters after his working visit to the United States on December 9.
“As far as the US military budget is concerned, it seems to me that at the moment the Congress is literally consumed by the desire to do everything within its powers to destroy our relations,” Rus- sia’s top diplomat said. “The cause, started by the administration of Barack obama, still lives on. But we are used to this kind of attacks, we know how to respond to them and I assure you that neither Nord Stream 2 nor Turkish Stream will ever be halted.”
After delays caused by the Danish govern- ment the Nord Stream 2 is due for completion in May and Turkish Stream will come online in
January.
This week Democrats and Republicans in the
US Congress reached agreement on the fiscal year 2020 National Defence Authorization Act, with the defence budget for the reported period standing at $738bn.
Among other things, the document includes a series of provisions on Washington’s efforts to counter ‘threats’ that include Russia and China. US lawmakers once again extended the embargo on direct military cooperation with Moscow. Besides, they obliged the administration to impose sanctions on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 and Turkish Stream gas pipeline projects. The doc- ument’s authors claim the move would protect European energy security.
The sanctions on the pipelines are widely believed to have little to do with politics and more to do with promoting US overseas sales of LNG.™
Nigeria’s Axxela pledges to expand West African gas transport infrastructure
afriCa
NIGERIA’S Axxela has pledged to continue working to expand its transportation network for natural gas in West Africa.
Tunde Baba-Agba, the company’s head of sales and marketing, said at the Ghana Gas Forum in Accra last week that Nigeria and other West African producers had the opportunity to use their gas to support industrialisation. Axx- ela’s projects are designed to promote this goal, he said.
“Natural gas is now highly regarded as a key resource of the energy sector and a key com- ponent geared towards value creation for West Africa’s economies,” he said. “We’re confident that our strategic initiatives and the expansion of our operational footprint – particularly within the virtual pipeline, gas processing and distribu- tion, and embedded power spaces – will help unlock the vast potential within important eco- nomic clusters across the region.”
Baba-Agba’s words were echoed by Senam Gbeho, the head of the executive committee at the Gas Consortium and the organiser of the Ghana Gas Forum. Gbeho said he saw gas not
only as a valuable resource but as a tool capable of reducing poverty levels in West Africa. Coun- tries in this region must take steps to introduce policies and establish agencies that support this aim, he said.
Axxela is one of Nigeria’s leading private-sec- tor gas transport companies. It currently controls more than 280km of pipelines through its main subsidiaries, Central Horizon Gas, Gas Network Services and Gaslink Nigeria. The latter operates a 140mn cubic feet per day (1.45bn cubic metres per year) distribution network with more than 100km of pipelines that supply gas to customers in the Lagos metropolitan area.
The company is also the first independent supplier of gas to West African Gas Pipeline Co. (WAGP), the operator of a 678-km regional network that consists of a trunk line connecting Nigeria’s Lagos-Escravos system to the Ghanaian city of Takoradi and spurs extending to Tema, another city in Ghana; Lome, in Togo; and Cot- onou, in Benin.
The capacity of the WAGP system amounts to about 484 mmcf per day (5 bcm per year).™
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