JGC Holdings Corp., the leading Japanese LNG and energy project engineer, has been awarded the contract for the front-end engineering and design of Nigeria’s first floating LNG project along with Europe’s Technip Energies.
The project is being developed by UTM Offshore Limited, an indigenous private company in Nigeria engaged primarily in crude oil sales and an established provider of marine logistic support services to the oil and gas sector.
UTM is the parent company of UTM FLNG Ltd, which previously awarded a contract to JGC for the conceptual design of the FLNG facility.
“Consequently, the consortium of JGC Corp. and Technip has now been awarded the contract for the FEED of an FLNG plant producing 1.2 million tonnes per annum of LNG and other products including liquefied petroleum gas and condensate, with the completion date for the FEED slated for December 2023,” explained JGC whose headquarters are in Kanagawa, Japan.
Topside design
JGC explained that it would be primarily responsible for the topside design covering the LNG production facilities while Technip would handle the hull and the mooring system design.
“We believe this award duly reflects the satisfaction of the client with the conceptual design performed by JGC as well as the outstanding track record and project execution capabilities of the JGC Group and Technip Energies in the field of FLNG,” declared JGC.
“Upon completion of the FEED, the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) phase is envisaged and, if realized, this will be the first FLNG facility in Nigeria and a milestone project for the country,” said JGC.
JGC has delivered the EPC for two previously completed FLNG facilities for Petronas of Malaysia, and together with Technip and for the Coral South FLNG project in Mozambique that shipped its first cargo in November 2022.
However, Ngeria has lagged behind other African nations such as Cameroon, Mozambique and newcomers like Mauritania and Senegal in establishing FLNG facilities for its extensive natural gas resources. and associated gas in oil fields.
Onshore expansion
Nigeria operates the onshore LNG plant at Bonny Island in the Niger Delta where output dropped for a second year in 2021 to 16.42 million tonnes, down almost 22 percent from the 21MT shipped in the previous year.
NLNG is also hoping to move forward faster and develop its long-awaited Train 7 project.
The NLNG onshore plant with six liquefaction Trains is owned by four shareholders, Shell, the French and Italian majors TotalEnergies and Eni as well as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), which holds 49 percent of the venture.
The onshore Train 7 contract will also have a de-bottlenecking programme and would add around 8 MTPA of capacity to the Bonny Island facility, taking the total nameplate capacity to around 30 MTPA in the future.
