LNG

July 22 (LNGJ) - Italian major Eni has held talks with the leaders of Nigeria and the Republic of Congo on LNG and energy issues. Nigerian President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the Eni Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi held talks in Abuja. “The CEO highlighted Eni’s commitment to the country through significant investments that will be focused in deepwater projects, including the Abo and Bonga fields and Nigeria LNG,” said Eni.

   Eni CEO Descalzi then moved on to the Republic of Congo for talks in Brazzaville with President Denis Sassou Nguesso centred on the new floating LNG export plant. “During the meeting, Descalzi illustrated to the President the progress of the Congo LNG project, which since February 2024 has started shipping LNG and including Congo among the LNG exporting countries,” said Eni. “With the second phase of the project starting at the end of 2025, gas exports from Congo will rise to 4.5 billion cubic metres per year,” the Milan-based company added.

Côte d'Ivoire President Alassane Ouattara has outlined plans to boost oil and natural gas output three-fold in the West African nation by 2027 when it would become a major regional energy hub.

President Ouattara told a joint session of Parliament in a major speech that more than $15 billion was expected to be invested in the country's oil and gas sector, adding that output would grow to about 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) by 2027 from 60,000 at the moment.

He said that resources had been boosted by recent oil and gas discoveries including the Baleine and Calao offshore fields and Italy and others and nations would lead the investment to help the nation on the path to economic success.

“It will be a spectacular leap,” Ouattara declared to the legislature.

The Baleine field was discovered by Italian major Eni in 2021 and production started in 2023.

National resources

The Baleine oil and gas project alone will help ensure that the population has access to energy for daily living and the surplus would strengthens the Côte d'Ivoire's position as a regional energy hub.

The Côte d'Ivoire’s regional neighbours to the North, Senegal and Mauritania, are currently developing floating LNG projects and Senegal is starting its first offshore oil project backed by Australian LNG operator Woodside Energy.

Among Côte d'Ivoire’s southern neighbours, Nigeria is an established world-scale LNG and oil exporting nation.

Ouattara said that $10 billion would be invested in developing the Baleine field and this spending was taking place in three phases through 2027.

Certified reserves of the Baleine field, discovered by the Italian energy group in 2021, are estimated at 2.5 billion barrels of oil and 3.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

Eni additionally announced in March 2024 that the Calao field had been discovered with preliminary assessments indicating potential resources ranging between 1 billion barrels of oil to 1.5 billion barrels of oil. 

Another neighbour Cameroon has a small FLNG project in operation, Ghana plans LNG imports and Angola is a major oil and gas nation.

Most recently, the Eni-led FLNG project in the Republic of Congo shipped its first cargo to Italy.

African Investment surge

The Côte d'Ivoire’s mainly oil production has varied significantly over the past two decades as existing fields have become depleted, closed for maintenance or development works and as new discoveries have been made but have needed further investment and development.

Eni’s partner in the Baleine project and other ventures in Côte d'Ivoire is the nation's state energy company, Société Nationale d'Opérations Pétrolières de la Côte d'Ivoire (Petroci).

In addition to the CI-101 block, Eni owns stakes in four other blocks in the Ivorian deepwater.

They are CI-205, CI-501, CI-504 and CI-802, all with the same partner Petroci.

Baleine's initial gas production is destined to boost the domestic market, strengthening access to energy for the people of Côte d'Ivoire. 

Côte d’Ivoire President Alassane Ouattara and head of Italy’s Eni announced a major offshore discovery of oil, natural and condensate with many development options for the resources.

The large discovery in block CI-205 has been named the Calao field and is the West African nation’s second-largest ever.

Eni added that only the Baleine field discovered by Eni in September 2021 was bigger.

Côte d’Ivoire President Ouattara and Eni Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi met in the capital Abidjan on March 7 to discuss the successful results of the exploration well called Murene 1X in the Calao find.

The Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire, Robert Beugré Mambé, and the Minister of Mines, Petroleum, and Energy, Mamadou Sangafowa-Coulibaly, also participated in the meeting.

Resource boost

The Côte d’Ivoire’s mainly oil production has varied significantly over the past two decades as existing fields have become depleted, closed for maintenance or development works and as new discoveries have been made but have needed further investment and development.

The nation’s regional neighbours to the north, Senegal and Mauritania, are currently developing floating LNG projects, while among its southern neighbours, Nigeria is an established world-scale LNG and oil exporting nation, while Cameroon has a small FLNG project in operation.

Additionally, Eni itself has just brought onstream an FLNG project in the Republic of Congo and the first cargo was shipped to Italy.

The countries of Africa intend to develop their oil and natural gas resources for the benefit of their citizens as Western nations have done for more than 100 years despite opposition to African hydrocarbon projects from environmental elites in the developed countries of Europe and North America.

The Calao discovery was described by Eni as a “very significant” one for the country.

Drilling operations took place about 45 kilometres (28 miles) offshore in block CI-205, reaching a depth of 5,000 metres in water depths of around 2,200 metres.

Analysis

“The well encountered light oil, gas, and condensates in various intervals of Cenomanian age characterized by good to excellent permeability values,” said Eni.

“Preliminary assessments indicate potential resources ranging between 1.0 billion and 1.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent,” said the Milan-based company.

Eni operates the block in partnership with the Société Nationale d'Opérations Pétrolières de la Côte d'Ivoire, also known as Petroci.

President Ouattara and Eni CEO Descalzi discussed the appraisal and development plans for the discovery, including Eni’s commitment to meet the country’s domestic needs.

Eni has operated in the Côte d’Ivoire since 2015. In addition to block CI-205, Eni holds participating interests in five other blocks in Ivorian deep waters: CI-101, CI-401, CI-501, CI-801, and CI-802, all in partnership with Petroci .

Eni currently has an equity production of hydrocarbons totalling about 22,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day from the Baleine field, which started production in August 2023. 

The United States government forecasts that the global liquefied natural gas markets in the current winter season would likely be balanced through to the end of March 2024 even as geopolitical, weather and other risks remained.

Italian major Eni has agreed to sell several permit interests in the Republic of Congo for $300 million to European oil and gas company Perenco as Eni continues to focus on being the Central-West African nation’s sole natural gas producer and developer of a floating LNG export project using two liquefaction vessels.

Liquefied natural gas-producing nation Angola, which has pioneered associated gas use from oil fields to turn into LNG for export, has decided to open up the potential of the southern offshore Kwanza Basin likened in some ways by petroleum engineers to the prolific Santos Basin offshore Brazil.

The TotalEnergies-led Cameia-Golfinho project will be the first deepwater development in the pre-salt Kwanza Basin and is estimated to hold at least 420 million barrels of oil equivalent.

Analysts note that Angola is known to have significant untapped resources as demonstrated by the contrast between its proven and estimated reserves of 9 billion versus 57 billion barrels of oil and 11 trillion versus 27 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The pre-salt areas in southern Africa represent frontier acreage with lower exploration risk and higher potential for production.

As part of its efforts to focus on subsea tie-backs, infill drilling and other near-hub projects, French major TotalEnergies is ready for the development of the pre-salt production hub for Blocks 21/09 and 20/11 in the Kwanza Basin.

The company’s Cameia-Golfinho project in Kwanza will be the first deepwater project in the pre-salt area.

FID scheduled

TotalEnergies and Angolan national oil and gas company, Sonangol Exploration & Production, have just signed a heads of agreement with Angola’s energy regulator, the National Oil, Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANPG), related to the development of the Cameia and Golfinho fields in the Kwanza Basin and a final investment decision is expected in 2023.

TotalEnergies said that this future offshore development project in Blocks 20 and 21, located around 150 kilometres (93 miles) southwest of Luanda, will comprise a new floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit, the seventh for TotalEnergies in Angola, connected to a subsea network.

“The design of this new project includes electrical generation from a combined-cycle turbine and a zero-flaring concept, allowing a lower carbon intensity,” said TotalEnergies.

The Chairman of the Board of regulator ANPG, Paulo Jerónimo, said that the accord with the TotalEnergies-Sonangol joint venture should allow the first production in the maritime zone of the Kwanza and may “contribute decisively” to the national production objectives.

“Its potential may generate interest from other operators, including the beginning of other developments on the Kwanza Basin,” Jerónimo explained.

Gaspar Martins, Chairman of the Board at Sonangol, said the company’s main objective is to make the Kwanza project successful.

“For some time now, we have wanted Blocks 20 and 21 to start producing, and we target a final investment decision this year so that the offshore Kwanza Basin soon begins production,” stated Martins.

TotalEnergies is the Blocks 20-21 operator with an 80 percent shareholding while Sonangol owns the remaining 20 percent.

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.

Dec 13 (LNGJ) - New Fortress Energy, the New York-based LNG projects developer, said it expected the business to generate more than $11 billion of additional liquidity over the next three years and more cash would be returned to shareholders.

   “Our business is now generating significant, stable, and growing cash, which we believe affords us the ability to both retain capital necessary to grow and return excess capital to shareholders in the form of meaningful dividends,” said Wes Edens, Chairman and Chief Executive of NFE. “We are fortunate to have a strong balance sheet and the liquidity we believe is necessary to execute our strategy and achieve our goals, matching long-term LNG supply with long-term power demand around the world,” added Edens, who also cited investments in floating LNG facilities.

Italian energy company Eni reported group adjusted second quarter 2022 EBIT of €5.84 bill, up 13% quarter-on-quarter and more than doubling the year-on-year figures.

New Fortress Energy Inc., the US LNG-for-power company, has sold its stake in the Porto de Sergipe Power Plant in northeast Brazil along with its joint venture partner for around $1.3 billion.