LNG

French major TotalEnergies reported a decline in second-quarter earnings led by the company’s liquefied natural gas and the refining and chemicals divisions, while exploration and production performed well.

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.

The Nigeria LNG plant at Bonny Island in the Niger Delta is set for more feed gas from development of the onshore Ubeta gas field first discovered 60 years ago in the West African nation with world-class oil and gas untapped reserves.

Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., the state energy company, and French major TotalEnergies said they had agreed to develop the field at an initial cost of $550 million.

TotalEnergies is the operator of the onshore licence for the Nigerian Ubeta's gas field with a 40 percent while NNPC will own 60 percent.

The field is located about 80 kilometres northwest of Port Harcourt in Rivers state, and the current licence covers two fields currently in production, the Obagi oil field and the Ibewa gas and condensate field.

The Ubeta gas volumes will be processed at the nearby Obite gas treatment centre and supplied to both the Nigerian domestic gas market and to the Nigeria LNG plant.

Schedule

The production start-up is expected in 2027, with a plateau of 300 million cubic feet per day, or about 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day including condensates.

TotalEnergies, which has a 15 percent stake in the Bonny Island liquefaction and export project, said the Ubeta field would be part of and expansion of LNG output from 22 million tonnes per annum to 30 MTPA.

NNPC Chief Executive Mallam Mele Kyari said he appreciated the support from stakeholders as well as from the administration of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu.

“We appreciate presidential support for the fiscal terms of the agreement,” Kyari added.

The TotalEnergies Senior Vice President African Exploration and Production, Mike Sangster, said the Ubeta project is the latest in a series to tap associated gas from oil production.

“Ubeta fits perfectly with our strategy of developing low-cost and low emission projects, and will contribute to the Nigerian economy through higher LNG exports,’ Sangster added.

Train Seven

The Nigerian LNG plant has been in production since 1999 and the shareholders in addition to TotalEnergies are held by NNPC with 49 percent, Shell with 25.6 percent and Italy’s Eni with 10.4 percent.

The facility has capacity to producer 26 MTPA of LNG from six liquefaction Trains, though the development of a seventh LNG Train has suffered from delays.

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. 

June 11 (LNGJ) - Enagás, the Spanish natural gas grid and LNG terminals operator, recorded a drop of 18.6 percent in May natural gas imports compared with May 2023 with Russian and Nigerian LNG imports declining. Data from Enagás showed that Spain imported the equivalent of 28,264 gigawatt hours in May, the equivalent of 2.89 billion cubic metres of natural gas. This included regasified LNG as well as pipeline gas from Algeria and France, compared with 34,709 GWh, or 3.55 Bcm of gas, in the same month last year.

   Russia was the largest LNG supplier to Spain with 6,416 GWh, or 511,450 tonnes of LNG, down from 9,663 GWh in May 2023. The US was the second-largest LNG supplier with 3,893 GWh followed by Nigeria with 2,932 GWh, down from 6,813 GWh in 2023. Qatar supplied 1,742 GWh of the LNG total and Algeria delivered 1,477 GWh of LNG and 8,791 GWh of pipeline gas.

Côte d'Ivoire is continuing to benefit from the ramp-up of the Baleine oil and gas field as part of a world-class hub of oil, pipeline natural gas and LNG exports and imports being built out to improve economic prosperity in West Africa from Mauritania in the North to Angola in the South.

Italian oil and gas major Eni said it closed the sale to Anglo-French energy company Perenco of Eni’s participation interest in several upstream permits in the Republic of the Congo in West Africa.

TotalEnergies has signed a liquefied natural gas sale and purchase agreement to supply Sembcorp Fuels, a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore-based Sembcorp Industries.

The deal entails the delivery of up to 800,000 tonnes of LNG for a duration of 16 years, commencing in 2027.

“The LNG will be sourced from TotalEnergies’ global portfolio. This new agreement adds to the companies’ current SPA, which runs until 2029,” the French major explained.

“By supplying this additional LNG supply to Singapore, TotalEnergies is contributing to the country’s energy security and to its decarbonization goals,” said TotalEnergies.

“This deal also reflects TotalEnergies’ commitment to supporting its customers in their transition to greater sustainability,” it added.

TotalEnergies is the world’s third-largest LNG player with a market share of around 12 percent and a global portfolio of about 50 MTPA with interests in export facilities from Africa to Australia.

Qatar deals

QatarEnergy is also a key supplier to TotalEnergies and in 2023 two long-term LNG SPAs were signed to supply of up to 3.5 MTPA of LNG from Qatar to France.

Under the Qatar agreements, LNG will be delivered ex-ship to the Fos Cavaou LNG receiving terminal located west of Marseilles.

Those deliveries are expected to start in 2026 for a term of 27 years.

TotalEnergies has gas interests in two of Qatar’s expansion joint ventures, the North Field East (NFE) and the North Field South (NFS) projects.

TotalEnergies recently reported declines in annual and quarterly net profits as commodity prices plummeted compared with the previous year while the French major sold over 44 million tonnes of LNG and opened the Le Havre floating LNG regasification terminal in France while being further boosted by progress in other oil and gas projects.

TotalEnergies posted a 35 percent drop in adjusted net operating income for all of 2023 to $25.10 billion from $38.47Bln in 2022.

For full-year 2023, hydrocarbon production for LNG was up 9 percent compared with 2022 due to increased supply to Nigeria LNG in West Africa, higher availability of Ichthys LNG in the Northern Territory of Australia and from the Hammerfest LNG plant in Norway.

Oct 3 (LNGJ) - Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany are scheduled to receive assorted cargo deliveries this week. The vessel “LNG Benue” with 142,990 cubic metres capacity is scheduled to deliver a shipment from Nigeria on October 8 to the Belgian import terminal at Zeebrugge, according to shipping data.

   The “Traiano Knutsen” with 180,000 of capacity will discharge a US cargo on October 6 at the Dutch floating import facilities at Eemshaven in Groningen. The cargo was loaded on September 18 at the Corpus Christi export plant in Texas. The carrier “Arctic Discoverer” with 139,760 cubic metres capacity is due to unload a cargo from Norway on October 5 at the German North Sea port of Wilhelmshaven. The shipment was lifted on September 23 from the Hammerfest plant in Northern Norway.

JGC Holdings Corp., which is involved in liquefied natural gas projects in nations such as Canada, Nigeria, Malaysia, Mozambique and Papua New Guinea, has become the first Japanese company using building information modeling (BIM) to receive the British Standards Institution (BSI) Kitemark certification.