Page 12 - AfrOil Week 38 2021

AfrOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES AfrOil

An ONGC subsidiary known as ONGC Videsh stake in the joint venture to Russia’s Lukoil last
Vankorneft arranged to buy a minority stake year. It pre-empted Cairn’s $300mn deal with
in the block from FAR Ltd, another Australian Lukoil, thereby bringing its holdings up from
company, last year. 35% to about 75%.
However, Woodside, the operator of the The Sangomar licence area includes three
project, pre-empted the deal and secured FAR’s separate fields – Rufisque, Sangomar Offshore
holdings for itself. It made its final payment to and Sangomar Deep Offshore – that give the
FAR in July of this year, shelling out approx- RSSD joint venture its name. Oil was discov-
imately $126mn for FAR’s holdings, which ered at the block in 2014, and RSSD hopes to
consisted of a 13.67% stake in the Sangomar begin production in 2023. It has estimated that
Offshore field and a 15% stake in the other two its licence area contains 645mn barrels of oil
sections of RSSD’s licence area. equivalent (boe) in recoverable reserves, includ-
Woodside had also taken similar steps to bar ing 485mn barrels of crude and 160mn boe of
Cairn Energy (UK) from selling its minority gas. ™

NNPC sells electricity from

Kaduna, Warri refineries

NIGERIA NIGERIA National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) months as refinery utilisation remained at 0%.
sold $1.1mn worth of electricity from its refin- The losses fluctuated between NGN5bn and
eries at Kaduna and Warri in 2020 despite its full NGN10bn ($12-24mn) per month to give a total
refining slate having been offline throughout the loss of $253mn, with the firm highlighting that it
year. had continued to pay operating expenses for the
The company has not processed any crude inactive facilities.
since mid-2019, but the Kaduna and Warri In a press release, the company said: “The
units remain capable of utilising their genera- declining operational performance is attrib-
tion capacity of 179 MW. utable to ongoing revamping of the refineries,
In addition to its refining throughput capac- which is expected to further enhance capacity
ity of 125,000 barrels per day (bpd), the Warri utilisation once completed.” However, work to
Refining and Petrochemical Co. (WRPC) can rehabilitate the refineries was only kicked off
generate 125 MW of electricity from three gas after the 12-month period ended.
turbine generators and three steam turbogen- NNPC said in July that work on Port Har-
erators, while Kaduna Refining and Petro- court by Italy’s Maire Tecnimont was in full
chemical Co. (KRPC) has four 14-MW steam swing, noting that the first refined products
turbines, giving it a total capacity of 56 MW in following the repairs are expected to be deliv-
addition to refining 110,000 bpd of crude. ered by September next year. It will come back
According to NNPC documents, KRPC on stream in stages, with the full $1.5bn project
earned $70,000 from electricity sales in 2020, up not anticipated to be completed until late 2024,
from zero the year before, while WRPC earned when it should reach 90% of its 210,000 bpd
$1.05mn last year, down 6% year on year. nameplate capacity.
In August, NNPC provided its financial The following month, fellow Italian com-
statements for the 13 months to February 2021, pany Saipem was awarded another $1.5bn deal
which showed that it made a loss in each of those to rehabilitate Kaduna and Warri. ™

NNPC’s Warri refinery has a throughput capacity of 125,000 bpd (File Photo)

P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 38 22•September•2021