LNG

Woodside Energy, the operator of the Northwest Shelf and Pluto LNG plants in Western Australia, has received a boost for one of its main overseas ventures, the Sangomar project offshore Senegal in West Africa, with the sail-away from Singapore of the “Léopold Sédar Senghor” floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility.

Golar LNG Ltd, the shipping company with a small but growing fleet of floating liquefied natural gas production and import project vessels including the “Hilli Episeyo” offshore Cameroon and the “FLNG Gimi” that sailed from Singapore to start a 20-year contract for BP offshore Mauritania and Senegal, posted a 35 percent fall in third-quarter profits on lower prices while revenues remained stable.

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.

Kosmos Energy, the US-based shareholder in the floating liquefied natural gas joint venture offshore the West African nations of Mauritania and Senegal, swung to a profit from a prior-year loss as more progress was made on the FLNG project.

Kosmos Energy, the US shareholder in the floating liquefied natural gas joint venture offshore the West African nations of Mauritania and Senegal, halved its losses in the first quarter and said material progress was made across all the major workstreams of the LNG project centred on the Greater Tortue-Ahmeyim gas fields.

Kosmos Energy, the US shareholder in the floating LNG projects offshore the West African nations of Mauritania and Senegal, has announced a new leadership team in its exploration division.

Golar LNG Ltd, the operator of conventional carriers, floating import and export terminals and a power affiliate backed by its fleet of 27 ships, reported business progress while posting a first-quarter loss amid increased operating revenues.

Golar reported a net loss of $104.24 million for the first quarter compared with $41.74M of losses in the same three months of 2019.

However, total operating revenues were higher at $122.55M versus 114.28M in the year-ago quarter.

“Golar is pleased to report Q1 operating revenues and adjusted EBITDA of $76.2M, that were driven by a solid performance in FLNG, with 100 percent commercial uptime on ‘Hilli Episeyo’ (Cameroon FLNG exports), and strong seasonal results in Shipping,” said Iain Ross, Chief Executive of Golar LNG.

At the Golar Power affiliate, the 1.5 gigawatts Sergipe power plant in northeast Brazil reached its Commercial Operation Date acceptance which triggered earnings under the 25-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) and the associated FSRU “Golar Nanook” charter.

Golar LNG said that the first three small-scale customers have also now been formally signed up and LNG distribution operations are expected to start in 2021.

“This short time to cash flow and the very strong project return confirms the attractiveness of our small-scale business,” said the company.

“To date, a further 200 potential customers have signed letters of intent to pursue various small-scale opportunities with Golar Power, demonstrating the robust consumer appetite to reduce both energy costs and environmental footprints,” it added.

Among other highlights, Golar LNG said the power unit entered into a partnership with Petrobras Distribuidora S.A. to facilitate a nationwide rollout of small-scale LNG supply to Brazil's transportation and industrial sectors.

Golar Power also signed an accord with the Brazilian state government of Pernambuco to develop an LNG import terminal in the Port of Suape.

“We also expect to finalize arrangements for locating a Floating Storage Unit (FSU) at Suape over the course of the year,” said Golar.

The affiliate is additionally working with BR Distribuidora S.A to overlay its geographical coverage of LNG distribution onto BR Distribuidora’s 7,600 Brazilian fuel stations.

“This will optimize the roll-out of the necessary infrastructure to convert current diesel, heavy fuel oil and coal consumers to cleaner and cheaper LNG through the provision of a stable and secure LNG supply,” it said.

The floating LNG production from the “Hilli Episeyo” hull deployed offshore Cameroon in West Africa is heading for its 40th export cargo with 100 percent commercial uptime maintained.

Golar also noted that regarding the “FLNG Gimi” being built for production offshore Mauritania and Senegal in West Africa, the company received a “force majeure” claim from UK major BP in relation to a delay in the order of 12 months to the target connection date.

“We are in advanced and positive discussions with our main building contractor, Keppel Shipyard Limited, and with engineering topsides subcontractor, Black and Veatch, on a revised cost and time schedule for the ‘FLNG Gimi ‘conversion that can be implemented as a contingency in response to the 12-month delay claimed by BP on its Tortue project,” Golar explained.

In the LNG Shipping segment, Golar said it expected second-quarter time charters to be at around $40,000 per day, with utilization of at least 80 percent of the fleet based on fixtures to date and the prevailing spot market.

“The current chartering strategy to de-risk the business by targeting more fixed and floating coverage has been successful and we intend to fix more portfolio term-based deals to further de-risk shipping exposure and to hedge expected volatility,” said Golar LNG.

“Except for the ‘Golar Tundra’, scheduled to dry-dock during June, no other dry-docks are planned this year,” it added.