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AfrOil PERFORMANCE AfrOil

The plant’s six existing trains can produce 22.5 tpy of LNG (Photo: NLNG)

Nigerian companies and Nigerian workers have economy. “Train 7 means 12,000 jobs directly
improved their capacity and are able to handle and, based on the board’s calculation, 40,000
high-end technical projects such as this one, he additional jobs indirectly,” he remarked.
said. He added: “On top of that, we are talking
The NLNG chief also thanked the Nigeria 55% of that scope will be domiciled and domes-
Content Development and Monitoring Board ticated, and Nigerians will be directly involved
(NCDMB) for helping to push the Train 7 ini- in more than half of the scope of this particu-
tiative forward and singled out the board’s exec- lar project, and we are talking of over $10bn in
utive secretary, Simbi Wabote, for praise. He terms of the overall Train 7 investment.”
said Wabote, who was the guest of honour at the NLNG was formed more than 20 years ago
JCI reception, had taken all the steps needed to and has been producing LNG since 1999. Equity
ensure the launch of the project in May of this in the consortium is split between state-owned
year, at a time when the global oil and gas indus- Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC),
try had scaled back its operations in response to with 49%; Royal Dutch Shell (UK/Netherlands),
the fall in demand that had followed the corona- with 25.6%; Total (France), with 15%, and Eni
virus (COVID-19) pandemic. (Italy), with 10.4%.
“[When] the contract was signed on May The group has already built six production
13 this year, that was right in the middle of the trains with a combined production capacity of
COVID-19 situation when the entire world was 22.5mn tonnes per year at its gas liquefaction
at a standstill ... The world was shut down, but plant. Earlier this year, it took a final investment
the executive secretary was determined that decision (FID) on the construction of the sev-
Train 7 would not be shut down. He pushed enth production train, which will push total out-
hard to the extent that [the] contract was signed put up to 30mn tpy. The new unit will add 4.2mn
against all odds,” he commented. tpy of new capacity, and the debottlenecking of
Attah also pointed out that the expan- existing trains will contribute another 3.4mn
sion project would be a boon to the Nigerian tpy. ™

PROJECTS & COMPANIES
Total may expand Libyan operations

LIBYA FRANCE’S Total has reportedly expressed assist with Libya’s efforts to bring oil production
interest in expanding its investments in Libya. rates back up “to the highest levels.”
According to a statement from Libya’s The Total executive did not identify any
National Oil Corp. (NOC), Stephane Michel, specific targets for investment, but Sanalla indi-
the head of the French major’s exploration and cated that NOC was concentrating on resuming
production operations in the Middle East and operations at existing fields. “The NOC and its
North Africa, made a statement to that effect last companies, even during the shutdown, have not
week. Speaking during a virtual meeting with and will not stop working hard,” the chairman
NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla, Michel said remarked. “This explains the rapid return to pre-
that his company was prepared to support and vious production rates.”

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 47 25•November•2020