LNG

Kosmos Energy, a shareholder in the floating liquefied natural gas projects offshore Senegal and Mauritania in West Africa and other regional oil and gas ventures in Ghana and Equatorial Guinea, swung to a fourth-quarter profit from a previous loss and reported good progress on the FLNG development alongside UK major BP and advances in the additional Yakaar-Teranga LNG proposal.

Exmar NV, the supplier of floating liquefied natural gas import facilities and an FLNG production unit to the Netherlands and the Republic of Congo respectively, has issued clarification to a letter sent to shareholders on the voluntary public takeover bid launched by Saverex NV for Exmar and open for acceptance until September 15.

The moves over the takeover process begun in June 2023 and involving Saverex, the holding company of the family of Exmar Executive Chairman Nicolas Saverys, came as Exmar also reported its first-half earnings.

Exmar revenues jumped to $200.2 million in the first six months of 2023 compared with $57.1M in the same period of 2022.

Proft returns

The Antwerp, Belgium-based company’s net profits amounted to $2M versus a loss of $8.5M in last year’s first half.

In regard to its latest letter to shareholders, the company said this may have “created the impression with certain shareholders that they are under an obligation to sell” their shares.

“This certainly was not the company’s intention and we, therefore, ask you to disregard this Letter and we hereby rectify that each shareholder is free to either tender or not to tender their shares to Saverex,” explained the company

“In the event shareholders have already tendered their shares in this second acceptance period, they also have the right to retract their tender,” it added.

“Certain shareholders have allegedly been approached in the name of the company, to convince or induce them to tender their shares to Saverex. The company takes the opportunity to underline that it has not taken such initiative and it would not support any such actions,” it declared.

FLNG progress

In the earnings report, Exmar, said that the “FSRU Eemshaven LNG” chartered to an affiliate of Dutch utility Gasunie has been running steadily at 300 million standard cubic feet per day of capacity.

Exmar added that progress was being made on the Congo export project involving the conventional LNG carrier “Excalibur”, which is undergoing conversion to a floating storage unit (FSU).

The “Excalibur” will be used alongside the “Tango FLNG” production vessel in a project being developed by Italian oil and gas major Eni.

Exmar retains an extensive fleet of other vessels, including three Vary Large Gas Carriers, 17 mid-sized liquefied petroleum gas carriers, two newbuilds and 10 pressurised carriers.

“The three VLGCs continue under their current employment. The VLGC market continues to perform well and prospects for the remainder of 2023 are positive,” stated Exmar.

“In the Midsize Gas Carriers (MGC) market, 2022 was an eventful year for LPG and ammonia with increased freight and higher ton-mile, while 2023 has seen a correction with reduced ammonia shipping demand, while LPG trade remained robust,” the company added.

“Owners managed to keep MGC hire rates at good levels despite recent newbuilding deliveries,” Exmar said.

May 9 (LNGJ) - Kosmos Energy, the developer with UK major BP of the Mauritania and Senegal floating LNG project and natural gas hub, said phase one of the venture called the Greater Tortue Ahmeyim project continued to make good progress. “First gas is targeted at the end of 2023 with continued progress across the four major work streams,” said Dallas, Texas-based Kosmos.

   “Hub construction work is complete and activity is focused on progressing the final commissioning for handover to operations around the end of the second quarter of 2023,” Kosmos explained. “The laying of the deepwater section of the pipeline from the field to the FPSO is currently underway. This will be followed by the installation of the infield flowlines and subsea structures. Timely execution of this subsea work scope is the critical path to first gas by the end of the year,” stated Kosmos.

Despite holding almost 9 percent of the world’s proven reserves of natural gas, Africa remains the most energy-poor continent while industries rely on expensive, inefficient and polluting sources of energy leaving hundreds of millions of households lacking modern energy access, according to a new International Gas Union report.

New Fortress Energy, the developer of LNG production, regasification and electricity projects and with a small shipping fleet, said its Genera subsidiary was selected by Puerto Rico to manage the US Caribbean territory’s power generation system.

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.

Portuguese oil and gas company Galp Energia swung to a second-quarter net profit of €726 million ($741M) from a previous quarterly loss as it reported progress in the development of the Mozambique floating LNG project in southeast Africa.

Kosmos Energy, the partner of UK major BP in the Greater Tortue-Ahmeyim floating LNG project in territorial waters of Mauritania and Senegal, has given a project update after BP “force majeure” delay notice on Golar liquefaction vessel.

Australian liquefied natural gas plant operator Woodside Petroleum said the Government of Senegal had approved the Sangomar offshore joint venture development plan, one of the several major projects going ahead in the West African Atlantic Margin, including floating LNG production.

McDermott International, the US LNG and energy engineering company, said it won a sizeable fabrication sub-contract for the Greater Tortue-Ahmeyim natural gas development offshore Mauritania and Senegal to underpin floating LNG ventures led by BP of the UK and Dallas, Texas-based Kosmos Energy.